What would I hang on the walls of my
office? And what would that say about my values as an assistant principal? As
students began entering the office during this first week of school, I happily
gave them a tour.
One wall was reserved for a series
of Apple “Think Different” posters that my wife gave me during my first year of
teaching, 19 years ago. I’ve had them up every year since, so there was no
doubt that they would make their way into the room. They feature black-and-white
photos of famous innovators, from Mahatma Gandhi to Amelia Earhart to Jim
Henson to Pablo Picasso. The “Think Different” slogan has always fit into my
core values as an educator, so I want students to see those words as often as
possible.
There are no diplomas on the walls,
but there is a teacher award plaque and photos of my students, one of them a
framed photo of a journalism class given to me last year by the students themselves.
Another photo was sent to me from a just-graduated senior, who is studying
abroad in her first semester of college and wanted me to see her enjoying a
rugby game in New Zealand. Another photo shows students from the community
service club I’ve advised, posing with a patient from Children’s Specialized
Hospital during a dance marathon fund-raiser. With these snapshots from my
teaching life, I hope to show students how much I care about their lives.
There is a small, three-tiered table
in a corner, which features an old-school typewriter on the top level, a
reporter’s notebook and recorder on the second level, and a newspaper drawing
on the bottom. The table reminds me of the journalism that serves as the foundation
of my work experience, work ethic and work philosophy.
The bookshelf features texts that support
my work in education and adolescent development (from Carol Dweck’s Mindset to
Susan Cain’s Quiet to Angela Duckworth’s Grit to Frank Bruni’s Where You Go is
Not Who You’ll Be), as well as books that encourage dialogue on social justice
and community engagement (Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, Bryan
Stevenson’s Just Mercy, Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, James
McBride’s The Color of Water). There are also books that remind me of how I grew
into my role as an educator and thinker, from authors such as Jonathan Kozol,
Anna Quindlen, Fred Rogers and Ralph Ellison.
Outside my door, there are two
dry-erase boards: One for students who need to leave me messages, and one
featuring an inspirational quote of the day. On the first day of school, I
posted a quote from the writer Rainer Maria Rilke: “And now we welcome the new
year, full of things that have never been.”
Beyond the innovators, snapshots,
mementoes, books and words, there’s another piece to this room that serves as
perhaps the most visible part of my office décor. On three of the walls, I have
hung photos and drawings of bridges. Many of them depict the Brooklyn Bridge,
which has long been my favorite New York City landmark. From poster-sized photos
to New Yorker covers to a painting by my daughter, I surround myself with the
135-year-old architectural beauty that spans the East River because I find it incredibly
inspiring.
But as a writer and English teacher, I
also see a metaphor here. Adolescence is, in many ways, a bridge between
childhood and adulthood. And administrators are often bridge-keepers who help
connect students, faculty, parents and the overall community with one another.
Finally, schools themselves are bridges, designed to help learners connect with
one another, with academic disciplines, and with their own individual thoughts.
We’re constantly building bridges for students as they share information, and also
within students as they connect the dots between prior knowledge and new discoveries,
between assumptions and reality, and between fact and fiction. In so many ways,
educators are the engineers of personal growth, and it is our job to keep the
pathways clear for students to make important crossings and to take the risk of
reaching for the other side.
There are a lot of quotes out there
supporting this metaphor, but I’ll leave you with one. During a lecture 55
years ago, Ralph Ellison said, “Education is all a matter of building bridges.”
This seems as true to me today as it was to Ellison in 1963.
So yes, I have an office now. But the essence
of my work remains the same as it ever was. In case I forget that, I’ve got the
bridges to remind me.
