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PREFACE

Why I Wrote HEART!

I remember the moment like it was yesterday—July 17, 2002, 10:03 a.m. I was in my office interviewing a candidate for our director of instructional technology position. Usually a high-energy kind of guy, I was trying hard to listen to his responses to my interview questions, but I could not focus. And, I had been superintendent for all of sixteen days.

I knew something was very wrong.

It was hard to breathe, and my chest felt like it was going to constrict and collapse, like someone was sitting on top of me. I quickly finished the interview, quietly slipped out of my office, and drove to the local hospital. I called no one. Why panic?

Within ten minutes of entering the emergency room, I was on an operating table, and a few hours later had two coronary artery stents inserted near my heart, eliminating two severe blockages. According to the cardiologist, I was a month or two away from a full-blown heart attack.

And I had no idea.

I was reasonably young at the time. And you have to wonder, how did it come to that? What had caused me to not take better care of my heart? Or, how could I be so clueless about the actual condition of my heart?

Worse yet, it was mostly my fault. After years of playing baseball and softball, running marathons, and doing the types of “eat, move, sleep” behaviors that are good for the heart, I had drifted through a decade of actions and behaviors that gradually ate away at my heart health.

I justified that decade of course, like we all do. I was going back to school to work on an advanced degree; I was coaching my children in their sports; and my high-pressure work as an educator and author demanded more and more of my time. I had moved further out in the suburbs for more affordable housing and extended my daily drive to twenty-six miles one way each day. I ate mostly fast food, often in the car, and even worse—I had no time left for much exercise. I sat. A lot.

And then July 17, 2002, happened to me. My heart had had enough. It called me out. It was tired of the damage I was doing to myself. And, although it took five years to get it completely right, it is fifteen years later as I write this book, and I am still learning how to keep my healthier heart—every day, each day, one day at a time.

So, why tell you this story?

Soon enough, I realized my personal heart experience served as a metaphor for my work life as well. How well did I really understand my own heart for teaching and leading? Were the contributing elements of my work life gradually inspiring or destroying me and my colleagues, my students, and the school culture we were trying to build?

After all, our heart is at the center of our personal and professional lives.

It was in the recovery room at the hospital (and the subsequent next five years of often difficult follow-up procedures) that my desire to write this book began. More than ever, I realized how fragile life could be. The heart of our classrooms, our school, and our district seems to be the way we should measure our professional journey. Otherwise, why would we choose such a relationally intense profession, a profession that calls for understanding the role our heart plays?

Like me, you too may or may not be drifting into patterns of behavior that will damage your heart for educating students and colleagues. It depends on the personal and professional school season you are in. Maybe you have lost your passion for the work. Maybe your personality seems a bit edgy these days. Maybe you are tired of the constant preparation and follow-up work required. Maybe you are just tired. Maybe your perseverance meter ran out. Maybe you hide it so well that sadly, like me, no one from your professional or personal life will notice until it might be too late.

The day will come in your career when you will pack up all your boxes and wonder, “Did I make a difference?” “Was my heart right for the work I did?” “Did my work life matter?” And most important, you will ask, “What is the residue of my work life and effort on the students and colleagues I left (and am leaving) behind?”

And, how will you know?

Well, I suppose that’s the point of reading this book. It’s why I wrote it. I want you to know. I want you to connect and reconnect to and be mindful of your choices in doing the complex work of an educator.

Have you and I chosen wisely?

I have tried to approach this book with humor, research, experiences, reflection, hope, mindfulness, and meaningfulness—which are, of course, in the eye and the practice of the reader.

Teaching, when properly understood as a career of positive emotion and action, is such a wonderful gift you can give—a gift of your heart and your life to others. I hope this book can be a gift to your heart, a gift that both enriches your natural talent and helps you to become more intentional about your own professional practice for the personal marathon of your professional teaching life.

Václav Havel says, “The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and human responsibility.”¹ This book is about the very human heart for our work as educators. It is about feeling and seeing the genius in every child. It is about deeper reflection. It is about a happy and healthy humility of spirit combined with a passion for our responsibility to help each and every student and colleague that joins us along our career path.