Yesterday afternoon as I was at about my site attending to
students, I came across this pithy rant. My initial response was one of anger
and annoyance, wanting to instinctively have it washed off, from a broken
windows mindset, thinking graffiti will just replicate itself.
But taking a photo just had me mull it over. I was the
object of someone’s anger and hate. And it became a badge of honor; I had
earned my stripes as a leader, as it were, and someone had taken the time to
put into writing to their insult to me.
Hey can you at least know how to punctuate the abbreviation of Mister. Well
today, that little detail revealed the writer to me as I was helping one of our
newest and most challenging students to me as the student worked on class work.
Now, my response was much more measured and compassionate and not so personal. It expanded my agency, which is the true mark of freedom. I
had before more me choices (not just one) of how I might now respond to this and also choices
in how this might be a learning opportunity for him yes, but more importantly
for me: how might I help this child repair the damage, learn from the
experience and give him more agency in dealing with positions of authority? . That is the true skill of a leader is to have the flexiity to respond to an address on many levels and the skill to have him respond to your advantage or eveyone's advantage.
He
didn’t bite at might invitation today. But I have tomorrow and the following
day.
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