Ed Heights, Mrs. Eichorn, and The Written Word

When I was in first grade at Edmonson Heights Elementary School, my teacher was Mrs. Eichorn. She wore dresses and blue mascara to work every day, kept her dark hair in a sort of 70's beehive bun, and hugged each of us as we entered her classroom. I loved Mrs. Eichorn as only a 7 year old boy can love his astonishingly beautiful first grade teacher. Halcyon days.

When first grade ended, I gave Mrs. Eichorn a parting gift as a token of my 7 year old boy love. I imagine it was some sort of god-awful costume jewelry, probably a pin or something, though I don't remember now. Mrs. Eichorn, being the good teacher and kind soul she was, sent me a Thank You note on June 20, 1973. I still have that card:

The hand written note or letter is increasingly anachronistic. At the risk of sounding curmudgeonly, I think this is one of the most tragic consequences of technology's ubiquity. I get it. It's easy to send an email or text. And who even has cards these days? Or decent stationary? Not many, I'm sure. But I'll still take paper and pen over pixels six days a week and twice on Sunday.

Mrs. Eichorn sent this note to me in 1973. It probably took her two minutes, if that, to write. And yet, forty-six years later when I read those words from her, I still feel loved and affirmed. That is the power of the written word.

When I take that card from Mrs. Eichorn out of my desk drawer at home and hold it, I can imagine her hands holding it forty-six years ago. I can trace the teacher-neat print of her handwriting. It is a tangible reminder of the intangible truth that someone cared about my rambunctious, smelly, wild-eyed, seven-year old self all those years ago. That care mattered to me then. It matters to me still.

I don't think there's any chance I'll have an email or text forty-six years from now that makes me feel the way this card does. If taking a few minutes of your time to hand write a card or letter could do for another person what this card does for me, wouldn't it be worth it?

I hope you'll consider who in your life might appreciate a card or note from you this week. Maybe a spouse. Maybe a child. Maybe a sibling or a friend or a neighbor. Maybe a colleague. Your written words, a tangible reminder of your love and care for that person, will remain far longer than you might imagine. Decades, even. Never underestimate the power of the written word.

And I love you too, Mrs. Eichorn. Still.

Bulkheads, Signs, and Mr. Rogers

About 15 years or so ago, we went through a house remodel/renovation. We had a few walls removed, converted our covered porch into a dining room, and redid the kitchen. No regrets - we love the space even now, all these years later - but it was dicey there for a while. Anyone who has been through a major renovation knows what I'm talking about.

As a result of the kitchen renovation, we ended up with a bulkhead above our new island. The inimitable Mrs. K, who is in charge of anything (like decorating) involving good taste, decided we needed a sign to spruce up this empty space. The kitchen is the heart of the home, so we wanted to find something that captured the essence of our family. This proved no easy task. We looked at countless signs in boutique shops everywhere we went: Stone Harbor, Ocean City, Annapolis, downtown, even in other states when we visited relatives or friends. No dice. Everything was either too corny or too cliche.

"Live, Laugh, Love"

"Our family is like trail mix - a little salty, a little sweet, and lots of nuts!"

"Bless Our Home"

Apologies if you have one of the above signs hanging in your house - just not what we were looking for. I finally decided to have one custom made to give Steph as a Christmas present. Of course, that didn't solve the dilemma of what the sign should say. I eventually landed on three words that, if they didn't exactly capture our family's essence, at least captured our aspirations: 

The trailer for the Tom Hanks Mr. Rogers movie dropped a while ago to great fanfare. I'm sure I'll go see the movie when it comes out, though I doubt the Hanks version will be as good as the documentary, and the documentary wasn't as good as the book. Read the book. Always. 

The remarkable thing about Mr. Rogers is he had no onscreen persona - what you saw on screen was just who Fred Rogers was as a human being. He once said, "There are three ways to achieve ultimate success in life. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind." Fred was my kind of guy. Or maybe I should say, the kind of guy I wish to be.

I could easily replace my "Love-Serve-Encourage" sign with one that reads, "Be Kind." After all, loving, serving, and encouraging others is just giving kindness feet. I mention all this because I'm forever saying leadership is really only about two things - character and competence. This is the character piece of that equation. To be a leader is to be responsible for loving, encouraging, and serving others. If you aren't doing that, then you aren't leading, no matter your title. It seems to me this old world needs a few more neighbors like Fred Rogers. Be kind. Be kind. And, for good measure: be kind.

Skunks, Poems, and Charlie Brown

I came across a snatch of poetry that was shared with me years ago by Pat Brown, an English chair I worked with at Overlea High School. Pat was inordinately fond of sharing literary jetsam with the Yahoos she'd been saddled with as colleagues, presumably in an effort to civilize us. She met with mixed success on that front. But some of the stuff she shared stuck with me, including this little excerpt from a poem titled, "A Valentine for Ernest Mann":

Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn't understand why she was crying.
"I thought they had such beautiful eyes." 
And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he reinvented them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems that had been hiding
in the eyes of skunks for centuries
crawled out and curled up at his feet.

I've always loved A Charlie Brown Christmas, like many folks I suppose, judging from its enduring popularity. Every year I laugh at Lucy shaking her money jar, tear up when Linus gives his "meaning of Christmas" speech, and endlessly repeat the classic line, "You're taking the curl out of my naturally curly hair" to my daughter Alice. And you can't beat the great Vince Guaraldi's score. For all that, my favorite scene is when the kids fix up the ugly, stunted, half-dead little tree Charlie Brown bought and Linus says, "I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It's not bad at all really. Maybe it just needs a little love." I imagine in that moment all the poems that had been hiding in that little tree crawled out and curled up at Linus's feet.

You see, the world tells us beautiful things are loved. I think loved things are beautiful. And if that's even a little bit true, consider the power each of us holds to bring out the beauty in those around us. Imagine if we spent our days loving people with such extravagance that we made them beautiful in the process, just like Charlie Brown's little tree. Friends, consider: who in your life has poems hiding in their eyes, waiting for your love so they can crawl out and curl up at your feet?

Nothing is ugly just because the world says so. Prodigal love can make anything, or anyone, beautiful.

Lake Trips and Friendships

Turn up the volume and let me tell you 'bout my best friend.

Leadership and Two Things

I was part of an interview panel for a leadership position within the county a couple of weeks ago. When one of the candidates was given the opportunity to ask questions at the end, she asked, "What does it take to be a good Coordinator in the system?" I took the question to mean, more broadly, what does it take to be a good leader, a question over which a great deal of ink has been spilled. If you type "leadership" into the search bar on Amazon, you'll get results 1-16 of 40,000 hits in books. That's a lot of ink.

When I was a youngun' just starting out, I had a pretty good idea of what leadership was all about. Of course, I was wildly wrong, as younguns tend to be about most things, but I was confident in my wrongness. Fortunately for me, I had the good luck to work for a great many truly excellent leaders over the years who helped show me just how wrong I was. Department chairs like Gus Galuzzo and Pat Brown; Assistant Principals like Rick Archambault and Tom DeHart; Principals like Linda Wilson, Jay Thanner, and Jay Ward. These people, and others like them, formed my personal leadership faculty over the long years of my career. I watched, listened, and learned at the feet of some true masters.

So what do I think good leadership is? I think it comes down to two things that are simple, though not necessarily easy: character and competence. Everything important about being an effective leader falls into one of these two broad categories. It's who you are and it's what you do. And no one can be a truly effective leader without both in equal measure.

I say all this because it's on my mind (that's what this little blog is all about,after all) but also because, as C&I staff, we are all leaders regardless of where we sit on the org chart. I continue to count myself fortunate to work for and with people of high character and impressive competence, including all of you. I can honestly say I wouldn't want to be in this boat with anyone else. Except maybe Spiderman. I'd like him to be in the boat. But not anyone else. It's good to have a crew full of captains and I continue to learn every day from each of you.

Hope you all enjoy your weekend!

Problems, Original Thinking, and Adam Grant

I was in a meeting the other day discussing the problems we're currently facing in education generally and in our little corner of it specifically. The gist of the discussion was that neither our problems nor our solutions are new. If we truly want to solve anything, some original thinking is in order. This is itself a problem, since the vast majority of our thinking is mundanely derivative at best. As we consider the challenges we face as an office, it behooves us to consider how we might promote original thinking. I hope you find this TED talk a step in that direction. 

Grandbabies, Dead Ends, and Eulogies

As most of you know, we have our first grandchild baking in the oven. Baby Charlie is due to arrive in early November. Naturally, the idea of becoming Grandpa is a bit overwhelming on every kind of level: emotionally, relationally, intellectually, and metaphysically. One unexpected byproduct of becoming Grandpa is a bit of an obsession on my part with dying. Is this unusual? Having no referent, I'm not entirely certain. But, you know, "grandpa" seems to indicate a certain age, and a certain age seems to indicate a certain proximity to, you know. . . dying and stuff. Mind you, it's not like it's freaking me out in an unhealthy way or anything. As the great Woody Allen said, "It's not that I'm afraid of dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens." It's just something I've been thinking about.

Alice has been taking voice lessons this summer. She participated in the musicals at Towson High the past couple of years and wants to move up the theatrical ladder. Her voice teacher lives in a little house on a dead end street in Parkville, right off Joppa road. She does the lessons in her garage. I know it sounds a little sketchy, but hey - fourth kid, whatever. I don't ask questions. I was there the other night waiting in the car while Alice finished up her lesson. It was one of those hot nights we've been having this August, so I got out of my car and stood there in the dark, leaning against the door. As I stood there, I noticed a sign illuminated by a streetlamp at the bottom of the road. The sign read, "Road End." It occurred to me I was literally standing at the end of the road. Was God trying to tell me something?

David Brooks, the author and political commentator, talks about the difference between resume virtues and eulogy virtues. Resume virtues are characteristics that make us valuable employees. Things like initiative, intelligence, problem-solving, collaboration, and effort. Eulogy virtues are characteristics that make us valuable people. Things like compassion, generosity, kindness, love, and service. I get to decide every day which of these virtue sets I'm going to focus on. Am I busy writing a resume or a eulogy?

It's my hope as we embark on this year together that, as an office, we focus on eulogy virtues. It begins with how we treat one another in our own house, so to speak. Then it expands to our work with colleagues in other offices and, finally, to our work with teachers and parents and kids. Competence in our daily work is important and necessary, don't get me wrong. This is not an "either/or" proposition. But no one will stand up at your funeral to testify to the difference you made in his or her life by crafting a killer memo. So  when you stand in the dark, staring at the end of the road, which will it be? Resume or eulogy?

Write well, dear ones.