MiddleView

I find it a bit ironic that one of the responsibilities of my new job as principal of NASSP’s National Center for Middle Level Leadership is to establish and maintain a blog for middle level leaders--ironic because I’ve never been able to maintain a diary or journal in my life--even though I’ve tried numerous times. In packing to move cross-country to take this position, I ran across a diary from childhood days--in reading through it, I was amused at my sporadic commentary on important events through my third grade eyes. The highlights of my life in those days ranged from remarking on Alan Shepard’s and John Glenn’s adventures in space to my friend and me walking to the grocery store to buy something to drink. Fast forward to today and I hope my commentaries will be a little more relevant and thought provoking than they were in the past.

It’s the beginning of the school year and for the first time since I was 6 years old, I am not "going back to school" as a student, a teacher, or a principal and it feels strange. I find myself reflecting on what I would be doing if I were still principal at Talent Middle School in southern Oregon--answering questions from all sides, preparing the ever-popular duty schedule for teachers, averting the crisis of the moment, attending endless meetings, digesting data and looking for ways to make it relevant, looking for ways to stretch the budget, preparing for the first staff meeting, and the list goes on and on. And while it’s nice to be operating at a less frenetic pace, I find I miss the energy, the excitement, and the enthusiasm that comes with being in a middle school at the beginning of a new year.

The purpose of this blog is to encourage reflection on what it means to be a middle level leader. My friend Theresa (a middle school teacher from North Carolina) and I were having dinner the other night and she shared a conversation she had just had with her teammates regarding the upcoming school year. They had discussed the question, "How will we know we’ve had a successful year - what will it look like - what are the indicators?" It’s a good question to ask regardless of your role in education. I’m asking it of myself as I try and wrap my arms around what it means to guide NASSP’s middle level efforts. I’m reminded of a passage from an essay by Jennifer James: "Success is not a destination that you ever reach. Success is the quality of the journey." So my question is, come June, what will be the indicators that your journey through the 07-08 school year was successful?