The second thing that stood out was the homily. The priest, who was also a breath of fresh air, talked about prayer. He said that we can’t underestimate the importance of prayer, of taking time to sit quietly with God. He said that if someone were to rewrite the gospels today, they would probably focus solely on Jesus’s sermons and actions, as the contemporary world is fast moving, results oriented place. But the priest pointed out that it was not by accident that all four gospels talked about the times Jesus did not act, the times that he went to be alone to pray.
And that got me thinking about school leadership. So often when people ask me exactly what it is that superintendents do, I struggle to come up with a good answer. We have many responsibilities, to be sure, and our days are often taken up with words and actions. We attend meetings and sign papers and speak to community groups and all sorts of things.
But the one thing I never tell people that I do is sit and think. How would somebody react if I told him I spend part of my day just sitting quietly thinking?
Yet sitting and thinking is crucial to a leader’s success. We should not underestimate the importance of taking the time to do nothing. Not only to avoid burnout, but also to make wiser decisions, school leaders need to take the time to get away from people, to reflect on their situations, to ponder their missions, to clear their minds from distractions. When the stress of our jobs make us feel overwhelmed, it is never wrong to step back and take time for ourselves.
We’ve all heard the metaphor about airplane oxygen masks, that we should put on our own before we help others. It’s true. If you are now or ever become a school leader, give yourself permission to do nothing.
Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention the contrast between Louisville a year ago, when I attended that peaceful, lovely Mass, and today, when protests shake the area after an unarmed Black woman, Breonna Taylor, was shot and killed by police in her own home.
We must do better.
We must come to see that systemic racism does exist in America's institutions--hospitals, churches, police departments, banks, corporations--you name it. Yes, even schools. The fact that we may not have experienced it personally does not mean it isn't there. Nor does it make us bad people to be part of systemically damaged institutions. But it does give us a moral imperative to search for the root causes and weed them out, be they people, policies or practices.
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