Man in the Arena: Reflection of the 2021-22 School Year

Each summer, I take time to really reflect on the past school year. This summer is no different. In reflecting on this past 2021-22 school year, one thing that stands out to me is the chasm between what I expected this school year to be and what it actually was. I expected a more “normal school year”. A year of daily classroom visits, all school assemblies, and staff gathering. Boy was I wrong. I’m currently reading Brene Brown’s “Rising Strong”. In her book, she talks about the “man in the arena” which is a speech titled, “Man in the Arena” from Theodore Roosevelt. There have been so many people making comments about education at the building level and yet, they are not here, “in the area”. I’d like to read the speech for you. As you listen, I hope you find some solace in where you are, what you are going through, and confidence in moving forward with grit and resilience.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how thte strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly;…who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.”

In the beginning of the 2021-22 school year, I realized quickly how different the year was becoming than what I expected. I’d like to share with you what I was going through. Here is an excerpt from my journal on September 7, 2021.

“This is hard. This is exhausting. This is overwhelming and this is me, drowning. How did I get here? What am I doing?. I know I’m not the only one experiencing this overwhelming, anxious, driven, highly charged, political emotional and educational structure. Even though I’ve talked with principals who are experiencing the same thing, I also feel so isolated. It’s not just one thing. I’m tired. The emotional weight of the lives of staff and students that are in my hands on a daily basis due to Covid 19 is overwhelming. I know that the mitigation used in my building, from the amount of students and staff that can physically distance and the decisions that I make to ensure accountability toward mitigation and distancing, move the needle toward safety. I know that the amount of students in the building dramatically decreases physical distancing because it logistically cannot occur to a distance of 6 feet. When I think about contact tracing I feel like I’m hyperventilating. I am essentially asking staff to let me know who could possibly have been exposed and considered a close contact with COVID-19. Those staff members names exposed contacts one by one. And one by one I feel a overwhelming anxiety. As each name is read off, I think to myself, “Will they get COVID-19? With their family get COVID-19? Will they have it in its most severe form? Will they die? What could I have done differently to prevent it?” These questions go through my mind on an almost daily basis.

The overwhelming weight of the burden that is placed on my shoulders and in my soul is practically unbearable. I believe safety is always the number one priority. Without students and staff feeling safe, learning cannot begin. It’s Maslow‘s hierarchy of needs right? If we don’t feel safe, if we don’t have psychological safety, if we’re hungry, if we need to use the restroom, then we literally cannot learn until those needs are met. Safety is my number one priority. Not only because I know learning cannot occur if needs aren’t met, but also because I care deeply for every student and every staff member. You see, I have to live with myself. I have to be able to lay my head down at night and know that I’ve done everything in my power to ensure the safest environment for my staff and students. Beyond that, I desire to lead in a way that ensures - educational opportunities and excellence is provided for every single student. They deserve it.

But you see right now in Covid, in this worldwide pandemic, I can’t get to the desire until I’ve answered the first question about safety. And when I have new cases of Covid happening on a daily basis, my first priority is safety. My focus is there also. That is not something I take lightly. I am tired. I am exhausted. The emotionally and politically charged atmosphere behind mitigation related to COVID-19 is an incredible additional weight to bear. When a parent or community member needs to share their frustrations regarding mitigation – such as in their opinion, masks are too much - I am on the receiving end of those calls. I realize it’s important for me to listen, to hear, to try to truly understand. That has always been important to me with parents or staff enter my office. Something is different this year though.

March 2020 started year one of Covid. Last year, the remaining of the 2019-20 school year, the virtual hybrid model held lots of grace, understanding, flexibility and partnership on behalf staff, community, parents, and division leaders. However, this year there is noticeably less grace. The levels of anger frustration, comments of directed insensitivity, are exhausting. The lack of understanding about mandates for us to implement, the fact that we are still not in a normal year are continued hurdles to jump over. These pressing difficulties to face and processes to constantly revise seem to be lost on all who are “not in the arena” as Brene Brown says. It’s not lost on me. But it’s exhausting. It’s tiring. It’s overwhelming. There’s so much that is left unsaid. I intentionally don’t share health related information, staff members’ difficulties, and overwhelming circumstances in the school. I won’t share or a parents angry and hurtful comments at this time because it hurts deeply. It’s lonely, it’s isolating, and it’s too much.”

This was my arena last year. I believe it is critical to recognize hardship as it honors the entire journey. Brene Brown, in Rising Strong, says, “…embracing failure without acknowledging the real hurt and fear that it can cause, or the complex journey that underlies rising strong, is gold-plating grit. To strip failure of its real emotional consequences is to scrub the concepts of grit and resilience of the very qualities that make them both so important-toughness, doggedness, and perseverance.”

Today, I honor the real hurt, fear, grit, and resilience of educators.