Lead With Resilience

#ResilienceLeads – Find #Peace through #Calm

Posted on March 29, 2020

          These unprecedented times require each and every one of us to provide patience, grace, and support to each other, our educators, support providers in our schools, and especially for our children. Parents drawn into the teaching profession with limited guidance, flying from the highest peak with new wings. Teachers drawn into full-time parenting, while still asked to continue their teaching profession and care for the academic and emotional health of children that they cannot physically comfort and cannot be sure that they can even access their outreach. Other support employees asked to maintain the infrastructures of our systems, maintain connections to our children, all the while being told that they should be “at-home” and secure their personal health instead of being out in public.

          These are times that are testing the hearts, minds, and souls of the strongest, and yet, knowing educators, school employees, parents, and especially students like I do, I know that with the commitment, passion, dedication, perseverance, determination, and resilience from all, we will strive through this adversity to success! We will rise to meet the needs of our students in the communities that now hold them in the palms of their hands, even though so many of them are disallowed from being able to leave their homes for even the shortest periods of time.

          Our educators, our school boards, our parents, our students, our employees, and the list goes on…we all must continue to turn to each other, rather than on each other. We must strive to be part of the solution, and not add to the load that each other is carrying. Again, I say, patience and grace for all as we all traverse this new future that none of us could have predicted or planned for. Yes, give yourself a moment, and please give others more than that as we look to create what has never been created. I have faith in the ingenuity, creativeness and the innovation of our educators and parents. The human spirit that resides in each of us, and especially in our children, will shine through even in these darkest days.

          Last night while on my evening walk my wife and I saw the picture below, looked at each other and smiled.

          She, as a teacher, is busy with connecting to children all day, who are lost in a world that is unfamiliar to them and they need to see her reassuring smile, hear her voice, and feel her care even if only through the internet. She is working to calm the fears of her fellow teachers who have not yet become skilled-up with the new technologies, internet platforms and resources that are connected to through social medias, and that they all will need to access and use to connect to children. And, she is also working to calm the fears of parents who feel that they cannot provide for their own children, even with the thousands of resources that the internet, social media, educational institutions keep pushing out and asking them to use without any type of real training or manuals.

          I have been working through the chaos of government regulation, local politics, state and federal confusion, as we try our collective best to launch a new space ship into uncharted territories with propellers and duct tape for spare parts. I have been working to try to calm the fears of educators who are seeking answers to yesterday’s questions, and feeling that we must return to some level of normalcy, even with nothing being normal in our realities. I am working to quell the anxieties of so many caring, compassionate people who are all looking for the “right” answers and yet the solutions will come the more calm we become. 

          Love, care, compassion, grace, more love, and belief that things will be all right, are some of the ingredients we need to be mixing together to support our children. Also, please remember, there is not one level of recipe, which is marvelous to remember in these days. In fact, while making cookies the other day my wife ran out of brown sugar, and yet, mixed a concoction of  white sugar and a hint of molasses, and the cookies turned out great! 

          As you move through your challenges trust in the calm you can create. Trust in the beliefs of #resilience, #perseverance, our collective #future, as these are essential parts of the solutions that lay before us. Remember, wherever you are today, the success you have had, the goals you have achieved, were probably not because of any one week, month or even quarter of school in your life! It was because of the collective growth, over time, that you experienced, and the supports you received through it all! You are the compilation of experiences that you you have had, the skills you used to overcome, and the memories that you have held onto that inform your future. 

          Our children will succeed if we remain calm and committed to supporting them, so I choose #Peace through #CALM and I ask you to do the same!  Please, join me with turning to others and offering support, rather than turning on others and adding to the load they are currently carrying!

          Thanks to every educator I know, support employees who receive a very limited amount of the adoration, our parents, our students, and our communities for your commitment to the children of California and beyond. To all of our employees, our School Board Members, and each of you connected to my Mt. Diablo Unified School District, and others, I see you, I value you, and I appreciate the challenge you are facing as individuals, and the ones we are facing together.

          Please let me know if there is anything else we can do to support you or your children as we work together to continue to provide educational opportunities for all of our students!

          My best to you and your families through these trying times.

Dr. Robert A. Martinez, AKA @ResiliencyGuy

Dr. Martinez is now the Superintendent of the Mt. Diablo Unified School District. He is a 33-year educator, author, and speaker on issues of #Resilience, #Culture, and #Education He reminds everyone to #ROAR4Kids “#Results through #Opportunities & #Access via #Resilience for kids!” He is continuing his book, #ResilienceLeads that will provide a glimpse into his story, help you think of your story, and focus on the stories of those you lead.