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Wanted: Persons of Positive Character and Hope

The most momentous thing in human life is the art of winning the soul to good or evil.

—Pythagoras

Your influence on others, without moral character, can lead to manipulation and inauthentic behavior. It can lead to potential actions of entitlement and selfishness. As you model the core values of the school culture, you influence your students and colleagues toward the essential voice, purpose, and the general “good” of the expected and agreed high-quality work of your school. As Pythagoras indicated, “You and I have a lot of power for good or for evil.”²²

The ability to make and keep commitments, the ability to manage your life well, and the ability to meet deadlines, to lead your students with good intentions, and to take responsibility for every area of your life represent actions of persons of positive character and maturity. Building such character requires a teachable and growth mindset.

Healthy schools are filled with adults that possess great character.

Over the years, I have learned positive character lessons from Becky DuFour. We have worked together at the Solution Tree PLC at Work Institutes since 2011. Toward the very end of a fall season of institutes, we shared some quiet time with her family and friends.

Becky shared with us a poem, “To Be of Use,” from the book Circles on the Water, a collection of poems by Marge Piercy.²³

To Be of Use

The people I love the best

jump into work head first

without dallying in the shallows

and swim off with sure strokes almost out

of sight.

They seem to become natives of that element,

the black sleek heads of seals

bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a

heavy cart,

who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,

who strain in the mud and the muck to move

things forward,

who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge

in the task, who go into the fields to harvest

and work in a row and pass the bags along,

who are not parlor generals and field deserters

but move in a common rhythm

when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.

Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

But the thing worth doing well done

has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident,

Greek amphoras for wine and oil,

Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums

but you know they were made to be used.

The pitcher cries for water to carry

and a person for work that is real.

Source: Piercy, 1982. Used with permission.

MY HEART PRINT

I flew home from that meeting with Becky and our friends and immediately taped the poem to a cabinet door in my office. I wanted to use it to inspire my work every day. For me, I told Becky it was the last line: “A person [cries] for work that is real.” I have wanted that kind of work my entire life.

How about you?

Is the work you do at your school every day real for you? Are you with people who want to submerge themselves into the task at hand? Can you feel that certain connectedness to your students?

Read Piercy’s poem. Is there a phrase or thread that connects to you and your work as a professional educator, teacher, and leader? Mark or highlight on the poem and write about your thoughts.

In our profession, the work is too real sometimes. Just look into your students’ eyes. What greater cause is there for you or for me than to give our life to the development and positive growth of children? To see them and give to them in a way that makes a difference? Our students and our colleagues represent the residue of the work life and effort we leave behind each year. Do our colleagues and our students become a greater asset to others because of us? The character development of the next generation is part of the heartprint we are leaving on the students in our classrooms or school; it is our use, as the poem title relates.

Look back at the title of this chapter: “Wanted: Persons of Positive Character and Hope.” You might wonder why I intentionally use the word persons rather than people. For me and the purpose of HEART!, the word people refers to a generic group, while persons refers to thinking of each member of that group as an individual—a person with thoughts, feelings, and soul. The persons I refer to mean more to me than just a collection of people. They are personal to me. Hope manifests itself in the growth we experience when we positively redirect the life of so many individuals. When we choose to become teachers and leaders of positive influence and impact, we see the people we work with as more than just members of a group. We see each student and each colleague as a person with a heart and a soul just like ours.

Tom Rath of Gallup poll fame has written three international bestsellers. In one of his books, How Full Is Your Bucket? he provides a Positive Impact Test.²⁴ You can visit http://bit.ly/2atJSB4 to find the test and other resources on positive impact statements. You can also go online to take the positive impact test and see how you score! When you take the test online, respond to each statement with yes or no, and as Rath indicates, do not worry if your initial score is too low. Following are two statements from the test. When I first took the test, I could not say yes to either of these statements!

I have helped someone in the last twenty-four hours.

I have praised someone in the last twenty-four hours.

MY HEART PRINT

After you complete the online test, choose one specific descriptor for which you responded no, and work on it for the next few months. You can write about your choice and describe how you can work to make your response a yes! Come back to this section of the book a few months from now and see how you are improving with your positive impact effort.

It’s funny. Hope is a word we overuse quite a bit. Yet, I have learned over the years that hope indicates there is a better future ahead. We say things like “I hope to get there someday.” Hope alone won’t get you to your destination, but hope provides the opportunity to travel there. Merriam-Webster defines hope as follows: “To want something to happen or be true and think that it could happen or be true.”²⁵

I tend to think of hope more as something we provide to others. We provide students with the hope and the expectation of learning. We provide our colleagues with a vision of a better tomorrow and the hope of its expectations. Becky DuFour is an example of a hope provider. It is why so many educators are drawn to her work.

When Gallup asked adult workers the questions: “What leader has the most positive influence in your daily life?” and “What three words best describe what this person contributes to your life?,” the respondents produced four categories of responses. One of the four primary categories was hope. When asked what hope meant to them, respondents indicated three general categories.²⁶

1. Hope is about direction—where are you taking me?

2. Hope is about faith—you know where to take me.

3. Hope is about guidance—you will help me own how to get there.

MY HEART PRINT

Hope is about direction—where are you taking me?

Hope is about faith—you know where to take me.

Hope is about guidance—you will help me own how to get there.

Think about these three descriptors and check them off. How would your students or colleagues rank you on each of these hope characteristics? Give yourself a 1, 5, or 10, with 1 being not very good, 10 being awesome, and 5 meaning you are working on it. Defend your rating!

I once listened for twenty-five minutes as the leadership team of a large school district in the Pacific Northwest proceeded to tell me many of the difficult issues they faced. The faculty, staff, and students were generally joyless. The onsite administration echoed a lack of faith and hope in the staff. Student achievement data had been stagnant for almost a decade. “Parents too?” I asked. “For sure,” they said. “Parents have no idea how hard we work. And they are the least grateful of all for our efforts.”

I had an overwhelming feeling there was no hope. If all was lost, if there was no hope, why try? So, I interrupted their monologue and asked, “Is there no hope?”

Without blinking or hesitation, they responded, “Yes! Of course!”

I responded, “Well, it does not sound like it to me. You speak as if there is no hope. You speak without joy. You speak without faith in your students and colleagues and community, and without a sense of guidance or direction that tomorrow could be better. If you really mean it, let’s go recapture that hope and return to the joy in your work.”

We then talked about how to bring hope and joy back to their school district’s journey. I asked each of the leadership team members to write on poster paper three actions he or she could take to rebuild a culture of hope. In the next six weeks, what was one action for direction, one action for faith, and one for guidance that could impact his or her area of school leadership? Those posters, and the actions they inspired, reignited hope in their journey.

There is a very subtle comment in that last paragraph. Hope is more than some ideas on a poster. It is in the action of our work that hope finds a home; we become more empowered, and we recapture our joy in the journey.