by Tom Lee
Interim Superintendent
Throughout my 40 years in education, I have often referenced a quote from Charles Swindoll:
“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company…a church….a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past…we cannot change the fact people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude…I am convinced life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it. And so it is with you…we are in charge of our attitudes.”
Recently, I attended a conference where one speaker came from “Braver Angels” whose mission is to, “Bring Americans together to bridge the partisan divide and strengthen our democratic republic.”
The speaker asked the approximately 100 participants to label a word or phrase as “red” or “blue”. The speaker began with “patriot” and the room responded “red.” Next, “social justice” and the room said “blue.”
The room was unanimous in our labels for the 25 words. The speaker asked, “Since we agree patriotism is a ‘red’ word, are we saying people who vote ‘blue’ aren’t patriots? If we say social justice is a ‘blue’ phrase, are we saying those who vote red are not interested in social justice?”
The speaker’s main point was we label one another rather than listen to one another for the purposes of finding common ground.
Many of us – from neighborhoods to nation – are frustrated by these divisions. They are not helpful to advancing the American experience and are, in fact, damaging. We have allowed political extremes to dominate the conversation.
Why would a lifelong educator talk about this? Because our kids watch our behavior and listen to our conversations! Values and character are both taught and caught – and students have accurate hypocrisy meters.
Many classrooms and organizations start by saying the “Pledge of Allegiance.” When adults say words that proclaim our indivisibility…but act in divisive ways, some kids may lose faith in the adults’ words. When we pledge allegiance to a country “with liberty and justice for all” and yet fight to exclude some from educational opportunity or other things, kids see through us.
Many people have said they are horrified by “what’s happening to our country” and “what’s happening to our kids.” After 40-plus years of working with students, I am convinced our culture is devolving and our kids are hurting.
I ask everyone in our community to pause to reflect on the words at the beginning of this column: …we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. What choices can we make to build up one another rather than tear down? How can we better align our words and behavior to the values we say we hold? What can we each do to be a part of a solution to our divisiveness rather than part of the problem? I don’t know about you, but if we don’t make a dramatic change soon, I fear for my kids and grandkids. Please – take a moment to think about it.
Interim School District Superintendent Tom Lee.
