The high school experience is classes, dances, sports, clubs, friends, romances, heartbreak, success and struggle. I am certain many can add numerous other adjectives to the experience.
It should be fun and exciting. It should provide great opportunities for memories and stories. It should provide options and alternatives. For those four years, there is so much to learn and so little time. Quite a bit of the learning happens outside the 8:30 - 3 - the regular school day.
At the same time there has to be a balance of the business at hand - education - and the opportunity for fun and games. We try and provide protected activities after school for our students. We try to maintain a degree of decorum during the regular school day. Frequently my job is to referee between the two. I want our students to be safe and healthy. I want our education to be meaningful and deep. I want our students to have the opportunities necessary to learn responsibility, self-respect, being dependable, trustworthy and a person of character and integrity. I want our students to have the freedoms of choice. But I also want them to understand consequences and confidence in their own abilities and skills.
So this morning was the time for recovery from yesterday. My job was to reassure that we are a school even during Homecoming Week. My job is to say you are safe and we will be nurturing but there are limits and yes, there are boundaries. My job is to say I love you but that doesn't mean I am gong to let you get away with stuff. So I tried.
It is in the times of confusion and possible chaos that I am most amazed at the quality of person we have attending this school. The kids are remarkable. We have about 2,000 people in this building working together and in general doing okay. The students go about their business. When they are called upon to bring it down a notch, they understand. We have some tremendous leaders and all great kids.
Today was a good day.
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