The People Make The Place: The Santiago Experience

I came to know Grace because she responded to a message I sent her about the possibility of interviewing for a position at our school. We were ​looking for a science teacher and, according to the internet, she was one.

Grace and I would go on to work together for 5 years. We connected and worked through the hard stuff together. Grace would become an ​incredible educator and make an indelible impact at our school.

It almost wasn’t to be because of my carelessness with email.

When I began my tenure as Principal, we did not have enough name recognition to recruit. We were a small school and folks simply didn’t know ​about us. So I spent a good deal of time communicating with recruiting pipelines (the school district, teach for america, etc…). I also devoted ​time to trolling LinkedIn and cold emailing potential candidates.

Good teachers are hard to find. You do what you have to do.

I found people who appeared to be Science teachers. I copied and pasted emails. I sent as many as I could. At that point, recruitment was a ​numbers game.

Grace responded. I wouldn’t have.

See, in my haste to communicate with as many people as possible, I failed to ensure that I used the appropriate person’s name. So the email ​wasn’t sent to Grace. It was sent to Carla, or Carol, or someone with a C.

Thankfully, Grace wrote back with, “Well, I don’t know if this email is for me but if it is, then I’m interested in learning more…”

I’ll take it!

We set up a time to connect to begin the interview process. Soon after, Grace, Alexis (my Principal intern at the time), and I met at a local coffee ​shop.

In a recent conversation with Grace, she shared that meeting in the coffee shop threw her for a loop but she figured it was in a public place, with ​other people, and so she was not likely to be murdered.

We talked about life, teaching, and her experience up to that point. It was clear that she was looking for new opportunities. She hadn’t come to ​teaching intentionally but now that she was in it she wanted to be good at it. She was not in love with her current school and worried that she ​would not be able to be effective there if she stayed.

Our next steps were to establish a time for me to visit her classroom. I came to the school but didn’t announce that I was a principal visiting from ​another organization that was trying to poach one of their teachers.

Grace asked me to observe her second class because that is where she shined. I agreed. Then, I arrived a few minutes early so I could see the ​ending of the class prior to the one she wanted me to visit. This was the class that Grace had described as more challenging. It was clear that ​they were a potentially tough group but still one that connected and respected their teacher.

After watching Grace teach, you could see that she was filled with raw talent. She understood the content, bonded well with the students, but ​wasn’t always sure about what decision to make in the moment. From our conversation and my visit, it was also evident that she was not being ​mentored effectively.

Grace was one of our people. She just didn’t know it yet.

After some time, and haggling with her current Principal due to arcane rules that make it possible for Principals to block staff from leaving their ​jobs, Grace joined our team.

Seriously, this is a ludicrous rule. I’m sure there was a rationale behind it at some point. However, could you imagine forcing a person to stay in a ​job that they want to leave? How effective could that person possibly be for the rest of their time?

Grace was committed from the start. She was incredibly smart and funny, and quite possibly, the most tightly wound individual that I had ever ​met. Grace lived with perfectionism. She wanted to be all things to all people. She was passionate and laser focused on her effectiveness in the ​classroom. She didn’t want to let down her new team.

If a work week is supposed to be 40 hours then a teacher easily works 60. Grace was working at least 90. She was creating and refining lessons ​constantly. She was teaching. She was grading. She was calling some families and avoiding calls from others. She was working with the other ​science teacher. She was everywhere.

Soon, she was exhausted.

With a young child at home and a husband who often worked long hours, Grace had spread herself too thin.

She could not be everything to everyone. No one can.

During our one on one conversations, we discussed that she was going to have to let at least one ball drop from her juggling act. If she didn’t ​choose which one, the world would choose for her.

We talked about her upbringing and her personal life. We talked about how her life plans had been upended when she became pregnant. We ​talked about what she was doing and what she wanted to be doing.

We talked about it all.

Grace didn’t slow down right away. She didn’t become less committed overnight. It took time, personal realizations, and extreme life changes.

It also took us discussing trashy television shows that Grace is convinced are amazing. They are not amazing. They are terrible. Reality television ​is for the birds.

Then, Grace and her husband separated. She and their son moved out of the house.

None of this was easy. None of it came quickly and none of it was how she thought her life would go.

It was also one of the best things that she could have ever done. She had chosen which ball to drop. Not an easy decision. But a good one. One ​that we talked about weekly for many months. It was a messy time but it shifted her life into a balance that it hadn’t had before.

She had one less job to be perfect at.

From then on, Grace was lighter. She was happier. She was less tightly wound. To be clear, she is STILL one of the smartest, funniest, and most ​tightly wound people that I know. But less tightly wound.

She committed her time to the remaining balls in the air. She was more present with her son and more intentional with her time at work. Grace ​still worked hard. Grace will ALWAYS work hard but she didn’t work hard at school for 90 hours a week.

It’s still not 40. But it’s not 90.

Grace improved at her craft. Over time, with coaching and good role models, her raw talent developed into a polished skill set. Her connections ​with kids strengthened and her bad habits lessened. She stopped avoiding as many phone calls with families (listen, we all avoid some).

She became an amazing educator. She is a leader in designing curriculum, a model teacher, and a beacon of high expectations. The truth is that ​Grace was always all of these things, she just needed the space, time, and support to bring it to the forefront.

Grace and I could have used our time together to look at observation rubrics. I could have made her sit in professional development sessions ​about behavior management or the latest educational trend. But those pieces would’ve only added to Grace’s ideas of all the things she ​believed that she should be doing or wasn’t doing well enough. Not one of them would allow her to understand that she already had all the tools ​she needed to be successful. They would not have addressed the human aspect of the work. All of the pieces of us that we simply don’t talk ​about when we talk about developing teachers.

I don’t believe that Grace will be a teacher forever. That is okay. It’s a job and people change jobs. But as long as she does it, Grace will be ​absurdly good at it and she knows it.

Because that’s the thing about giving people the space to evolve, you never know where it will lead. People change. They grow in different ​directions if they are given the opportunity – even when that opportunity knocking is addressed to the wrong person.

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