Warning, what you are about to read is nothing but my own ramblings about being an administrator.
I want to write. I feel I need to get some of this out but I’m not sure even how to begin and when I look at the suffering in other places I know it is insignificant. Yet, even with that knowledge, I feel really lousy because of my mistake.
My mistake involved me dialing a wrong number and leaving a message for a parent to call me about an incident with their child. I didn’t check as I dialed and, when I got the answering machine, I just left a message as I was dealing with another issue with another student. Bad excuse. Bad move.
So, when the parent received the letter I sent home, they were very upset I hadn’t contacted them. They tried to reach me but I was in a meeting after school, an hour from where I live and didn’t get home until late. I received their message to phone and did, explaining that I had phoned and left a message. She didn’t get a message and I realized I had phoned the wrong number. I apologized. The parent was understandably upset that now their problem was out and other people knew that their child had been in trouble at school. We discussed the problem, which involved some punches being thrown by her child and another and the consequences. The parent was still upset and I apologized again.
This has added to my “angst” as I had already been reflecting about my interactions with another student and what I could have done differently. The whole 20-20 thing. It’s not that I did anything wrong but I see how I could improve on what did happen and improve my interactions with the student. Good learning experience. When this phone call mixup happened it really threw me. I usually don’t make mistake like that because I’m very careful when I dial as I have a learning disability with numbers. This time, my mind was on a couple things and, voila, mistake.
As an administrator, I really can’t afford to make mistakes like that, or that is how it feels right now, since I have a few other things going on . I want to walk out the front door and shout “It’s not fair!” but, hey, life isn’t fair. I have developed pretty thick skin but it doesn’t help when I do this to myself. The worst part is that I care so damn much about what is happening with these kids and what is going on in the school and this doesn’t help my cause in any way. I know that this has happened for a reason and there is something important to be learned from this whole thing.
Like most of us in education, I am constantly striving to improve what I do. Being an administrator, I am always trying to build the relationships between families and the school, improve the communication and bring parents into the school. Then something like this happens. It’ not the end of the world but these things sure seem to come at the most inopportune moments. So, while others are exploring web2.0 improvements, connections with students and building upon the accomplishments of their web2.0 experiences, I’m using this great tool to wallow, mostly in self-pity, wondering why I’m writing this. Is this what we should be doing? Does this serve any purpose to what we are doing? What can we learn from such a post? Or, have I, in some way, made the digital shift to seeing this as a place where we, as educators, can work through such things as part of our discourse on education? Does it all have to be about great advancements, new tools and the digital frenzy that I seem to be lacking of late? Maybe that’s part of it. As I read through my aggregator, there are no mistakes. Am I the only web2.0 Shleprock? Or is this not the place for such discussions? In a small town, I really have few people with whom I can talk about such things. But is this the forum? I’m not bashing anyone but I’m, how does one say, feeling isolated.
Well, thanks for reading. If you got this far, you are pretty dedicated – or you are feeling much better about yourself because you aren’t doing yourself in like I did. So, if this did make you feel better, great. At least it has helped someone 
8 responses so far ↓
Blogs allow for a lot of transparency if the blogger allows it. It can be an intimidating thing. Do we want the world to know our mistakes? Not really. We cannot show the chink in our armor if we are to be great leaders, right?
You are dead on when you say that this is a great tool for our discourse for education, but it is also a great tool for our discourse of personal learning. If only our students would pick up on that and do the same, we could create a generation of introspective thinkers.
Thanks for sharing. While it does not make the problem any easier to face, it does make the learning more valuable. You have created a new level of accountability for yourself in the way you handle these types of events at school because I know you are not ready to write the post titled “Well Crap! I Will Never Learn.”
Mate, I make plenty of mistakes and occasionally blog them so don’t feel you are alone. Self-expression is the name of the game here and if someone making a call to a parent/client/students checks before they err because of your post, then it was worth wading through the angst. Anyway, I’ll bet you felt better after posting (or not)! I blog to learn and we learn from risk taking and mistakes, so just call it documenting your learning!
Scott, Graham;
Thanks for the comments. I do see this as a place for discussion at a variety of levels. I do like to discuss what can be done and what is being done in the schools but I also know there will be much muddy water where the signs of where we are to go will be impossible to see. At those times we will need to be able to discuss how all this is affecting us and how we feel about the changes and how it is affecting our schools, relationships and interactions. Thanks for the feedback. No, no blog talking about me quitting and yes, I did feel better. The experience of working through my thoughts to express them here really helped.
I think you should check out this post:
http://chalkdust101.blogspot.com/2007/04/we-all-make-mistakes-when-we-are.html
Must be kismet, I just read it yesterday!
I think you are being far too hard on yourself. I’m sure as an administrator you feel you must be perfect, but you are human as are the parents and the child.
As educators, we do our best because we care, but that is the best we can do.
As far as the web frenzy, I think if you are on a campus, it’s the time of year when you are wearing down–at least that is how most of us on our campus feel. You’ll get re-energized again.
Hang in there.
Kelly,
I’ve done it numerous times – made mistakes with parents. The key is that you admitted your mistake. You took responsibility and apologized. We’re only human. Don’t be too hard on yourself. It is not the mistake that matters as much as the way you deal with the mistake. You modeled this well.
- Dave
Kelly, don’t sweat this so much. Another parent would never have gotten so upset. Parents, colleagues, and students have a great ability to project their emotions onto us-I’m working on maintaining my own energy without taking in everyone else’s.
We get up, we do the best we can all day, sometimes we make mistakes and like you, we’re honest about them, we go home and kiss our family, then do it all again. And when we share this stuff on the blog, voila, we realize everyone else is in the same boat–next time I’ll paddle!
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