EM Update: One Last View from the Front Office

 

VIEW FROM THE FRONT OFFICE

            The view from the front office is quickly coming to an end. The reality of my pending retirement is starting to feel real. I’ve thought about this last article for a few months, but I find it hard to believe it’s time. Time sure does fly by when you are having fun.

            It’s not just a job, it’s an adventure! This adage from the US Navy says it all. Over the last 33 years (17 at E-M), I have worked alongside some wonderful people and watched students grow into mature, quality young adults. I could say that some of my students are now “older” adults. No matter what, I have never looked at it as just a job. It truly has been an adventure - an adventure that I never anticipated.

            Career day/career exploration in the “old” days was not like it is now. My early career thoughts included truck driver, chemical engineer, nuclear engineer, electrical engineer, mathematician, and computer network analyst.  I was three years into college before I switched to education, which added another three years to my undergraduate career. Once I was finally in my own classroom, I realized working with kids was my calling. It took some time (and challenges) for me to find my passion. I was all in, which sometimes put my family on the back burner, but they supported me and joined me in this passion. We have always stressed to our own - follow your passion! If you enjoy what you do, then everything else falls into place.

            As I reminisce over the last 17 years, I hope to have positively influenced the students who have graced the halls of Exeter-Milligan Public School. As we go through life, in the end, we will not be judged on what we have, but on what we have done with what we have.  I know that some of the decisions I have made have not pleased everyone.  But, in every instance, the prevailing thought influencing every decision has been, “Is this what’s best for the students?”  My ultimate goal has always been to provide a positive, safe learning environment for students and staff.  This is one goal that I can mark as accomplished!

I am not a conventional administrator who looks to bark (or bite) before anything else.  If students are treated with respect, one will receive that respect in return. We like to have fun, but we all know when it’s time to get down to business.  Not once in my 33 years in education did I wake up in the morning and not want to go to school. Being with the teachers and kids was not a job to me. It was a chance to spend time with my extended family and learn as the day went. I hope that everyone who has passed through these hallowed halls has learned from me as much as I learned from them!

            This is a bittersweet article. As I put on our graduation cards, “What in life appears to be an end is a new beginning.”  This is my last article for the Timbertracks and I have not always finished them on time (this is where I tell students to do as I say and not as I do). Twenty-seven years ago when I started my administrative career, I was this bright-eyed new principal (with more hair, too) who had big ideas of how I would save the world.  As time passed, I realized that some of my ideas and thoughts were a bit unorthodox, but overall, I wanted to make sure that students had a great time as we went along on our knowledge journey. That’s how I looked at it - this was a journey that all of us were going on, and we might as well make the most of it. As teachers and administrators, we are only the guides along the way.

            As we look to the future, let this little phrase help guide our decisions: “Is this what’s best for the students?” If the answer is yes, then do it—get ‘r done. If not, then find a way to make it beneficial for the students. I will wrap this last article up with a few morsels that I have shared over time and a quote I take true to heart. Thanks for the memories!

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Let's be careful out there!

 

Build it and he will come

 

Fair is what you take your animals to in the summer

 

Ease his pain

 

If I was any better, I'd be twins

 

Finer than a frog hair

 

Just another day in paradise

 

Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and lawn darts

 

 I have truly lived a dream!

 

“One hundred years from now, it won't matter what car I drove, what kind of house I lived in,
how much I had in my bank account, nor what my clothes looked like,
but, the world may be a little better because I was important in the life of a child.”