Journal Day 6 of My 71st Year
This morning is a typical Autumn morning. Summer’s heat has relented its place in our lives. The hot air balloons that we enjoy seeing overhead for most of the year are here now in the hundreds for the annual Fiesta. Fall asters are in bloom. The leaves on cottonwood and aspen trees are turning gold. This is when my year always begins. Autumn is a beginning for many like me who are physically and mentally numbed by the extreme summer temperatures. This is our awakening. The shorter days and cooling temperatures are Hope and Courage. What we put aside two months ago in the lazy heat-dominated days of summer can now be taken up with renewed interest and commitment.
I imagine that Fall shows real courage in its impressive appearance, seldom a saunter but mostly a surprising Sousa march into being. Here I Am! You can thank me later! Who captures the delightful performances Fall presents better than an orchestrated city parade with bands and floats or a burlesque show? They have the courage to express themselves flamboyantly, without reserve, without promise. On the other hand, Spring boasts promises; it wakens slowly and childishly, winking and stretching, at the same time wooing us. We become romantics. It entices us with longer days and warming temperatures. We prepare for weddings and gardening, for road trips and outdoor barbeques. Then we experience late frosts and floods and early heat waves. The fruit buds die, and seedlings must be planted all over again. Extreme heat and unexpected drought arrive. So much for the promises. Spring can be your time; Autumn is mine.
My daughter and I had a conversation this morning about courage. She works in the healthcare industry, and I get to hear about her professional associates. Often our talk turns to the question of how an individual’s incompetence is allowed to exist in a professional setting, how there is at least one manager or executive whose incompetence or unethical behavior should be disqualifying but is merely a source of gossip. So, I thought about my work experiences in education. I said, “It’s remarkable that many administrators who perform their tasks and execute their leadership with dignity and determination become cowards when they must face personal decisions about individuals.” You and I both know these upright lions who shrink when a colleague or subordinate must be reprimanded. They are great in group conferences but flail miserably when required to get personal. They put on a pretty show and woo us with big promises. Then the reality of their weakness becomes apparent. In education, we watched as incompetent teachers, and bullying parents, and unethical leaders flew unexamined and without consequences. Some of the promises – often the most important ones – were unfulfilled because the chief administrators turned their attentions to putting out fires while reseeding and redirecting floods. They created positivity campaigns and covered for each other rather than dismissing the arsonists. They revised programs and curricula, demanding more clerical work from teachers rather than establishing and holding boundaries. They hired education consultants for new teacher training rather than empowering the best teachers. They were Cowards who sabotaged their agenda and harmed the collective work because they had no stomach to hold individuals – whether colleagues or other stakeholders – accountable.
This is what happens in a top-down business model. The best place I ever worked, with the best educators and programs and parent-teacher relationships and results, was a collaborative school. The teachers wrote their curricula together, collaborated on lessons and assessments, designed the programs that managed classrooms and relationships. They collaboratively analyzed behaviors and data. The courage to do right and be our best was core to the working model. We didn’t begin the academic year with big promises from the top; we began with the work we’d collaborated on during the summer. We were rejuvenated and ready to face the hardships and joys.
Every fall season I feel courageous again. I know that there are winter storms ahead, but I won’t have seedlings or budding fruit trees to worry about. Our ongoing drought will have less effect right now. I’ve cleared the outdoor entertainment/relaxing areas because we’ll cozy up indoors for a few months. I’ve prepared for winter and cleaned up after the wind/dirt storms of summer. Instead of waning and sweating under a brutal summer sun, sitting out the hottest hours, I’ll be taking long walks and painting outdoors -- repairing and mending and revisiting. I’ll work better and write more often. I won’t hinge my life on promises, hoping and waiting; I’ll enjoy the bright burlesque show, knowing it will soon be replaced with dull winter colors. We need courage to march into our future and express ourselves. We need courage to take up where we left off, to take another look and alter our plans. Autumn gives us this chance.