horizons
I think of possibilities I think of the
things that you can see out in front of
you that are ready for you to just reach
out and grab and as an educator when I
think of possibilities I think of kids
and I think that each one of us have the
unique opportunity of affecting kids in
a multitude of ways but there are three
fundamental things that I believe that
kids deserve and one of those things is
men involved in their lives there’s a
nationally based program called
watchdogs and with that program they
seek to be in schools getting men
involved in volunteering their time in
the school system now I’m an elementary
principal in a tiny town in Texas in
Navasota Texas and I have about 750 kids
on my campus and we are always seeking
to get more men involved in our campus
so we participate in the watchdog
program and my assistant principal and I
set up this big kickoff event we were so
thrilled we bought pizza because you
know the saying if you provide food
people show up so we had tons of pizza
and we incent out invites we went by
every class we talked to the kids we
advertised online we advertise on our
marquee and with 750 kids we were
expecting a crowd and we went the
kickoff event that night for the
watchdog’s volunteer program and we had
two men show up and it broke me because
I thought what am I missing here why did
we not get these men to show up and I
sat down with my assistant principal
Aaron Marvel and I said what are we
doing what did we miss and the idea that
we came to was that the men figured out
what this was that this was just a
cattle call to get them to add to be in
schools more often and our parents
aren’t fools they knew what we were
doing and so we thought thought you know
I want to do something more with these
men because I know the power of having a
man involved in your life and I said
what if we did something different
because a lot of schools you know
they’ll do this event like a donuts with
dads type thing and now but our
facilities weren’t really going to allow
us to be able to handle that and so I
said well let’s do maybe a dinner maybe
we can get some we have some money that
we can do we can have a dinner that we
can cater and I said you know but I
really don’t want to call it like a
dinner with dad because a lot of the
kids that we serve in my community their
birth fathers are not involved in their
lives it’s their uncles or their
brothers or the gentleman down the road
or their children our youth pastor and I
said I want to make sure that we don’t
call it something that will limit who
shows up and so I thought what if we
call it dinner with the gentleman and we
can advertise it as the celebratory
moment to have these men show up with no
other expectation other than we want to
celebrate you for being involved in your
child’s life and I said okay you know
what we had to show up the first time so
let’s set a reasonable goal here I said
let’s do 150 let’s dream big I hope that
a hundred and fifty men and children
will show up so we sent out these RSVP
cards because we hired a caterer who is
going to make ribs and all these sides
and I thought you know maybe if we offer
ribs instead of pizza we’ll get more men
too and so we sent out the RSVPs and 637
RSVPs later we had to change our caterer
because we could no longer afford ribs
and we went with the hamburgers and said
oh my gosh this is blowing my mind it’s
way out of my expectations of what was
going to happen and I said okay we
really got to make this great I don’t
just want to have a dinner so we use
some of our extra Scholastic money to
purchase books for every kid that
attended so that when they left that
event they would have something they
could take with them to continue the
relationship with that man that they
brought and that night standing at that
table of books as the kids walked in and
seeing over 580 men and children show up
it blew my mind I’ve never experienced
anything like that before to stand in
front of a crowd of men who showed up
for their kids
we had three guest speakers speak we had
people from all different kinds of walks
of life representing different ethnic
backgrounds that matched what our men
looked like in the crowd and they each
spoke for about 3 to 5 minutes with
nothing more than to thank the gentleman
for being there it wasn’t a time to
lecture them or tell them how they could
be a better father or more involved in
their kids lives it was a time for them
to just be uplifted and then we had a
slide show for the men to see what their
kids were doing at school but my
favorite part was we had a stew
panel and we had kids from different
grade levels sitting on the panel and I
remember asking a second grader I said
tell me who you brought to the event
tonight and he said I brought my dad and
I said well why did you bring your dad
and he said I’ve never got to do
anything with just me and him he’s
always working and he finally took a day
off to spend time with me and that was
one of those moments where I thought as
an educator this was worth it this was
worth every ounce of effort that we put
into it
it was worth the money that it cost and
we just completed our second one this
year and had just as great of a crowd
that turned out and the kids can’t stop
talking about it now of course I had a
hidden agenda I wanted to get these men
involved in our school also after
leaving this event and I’d love to be
able to say yeah after this event we had
somebody come every day for the rest of
the year we haven’t yet we’ve gotten
better a gentleman left this event our
first year went and called his work and
said I need every Wednesday off for the
next three years that my kids are at
this school and he comes and spends one
day a week every single week at our
school volunteering in classrooms and
spending time with kids he’s been
adopted as our campus dad and we have
kids that will request him to come on
the field trip with them before they
request their parents that’s the kind of
impact you can make and I am such a firm
believer that it starts with one because
now we have three men this year who show
up and help out and we start the ball
rolling and these kids are getting
moments with these men that make a
difference in their lives but more than
just that kids deserve to know that
adults care about them more than just
showing up to school and learning about
something educationally or following
expectations that you have at home you
know I talked about us doing the
watchdog event and how we only had two
gentlemen show up well as a school and
all of you have been to school before
you know that they always try to do
these events they have math nights and
stem nights and reading nights and they
try to get parents into the school to
learn about all these great things and
if you work in education you hear a lot
of educators complain about what we just
didn’t get a very big turnout we
hoping for more what we only had about
this many people show up and I started
thinking I thought you know I did a lot
of mission work in my youth and I
started thinking about you know in
mission work when you’re in a church you
don’t sit in the church and beg people
to come to you and hope they show up if
you send out enough flyers and
information you go out and serve them
and I thought you know my field in
education why should we be anything
different why shouldn’t we go out and
serve the community instead of just
sitting behind our four walls at our
school and I thought about the community
that I live in and we have an apartment
complex in our community that a large
amount of our kids live at it’s also
where 90% of our discipline problems
live it’s where our parents live that
are sometimes hard to get a hold of or
their phone numbers change or they work
multiple jobs and they can’t come to the
things that we have at the school and I
said let’s go out to them but I don’t
want to go out to them and pass out
pamphlets or tell them hey here’s some
ways you can be reading at home your
strategies you can be using to better
connect with your kids I just want to go
out there and serve them and so we
partnered with our junior high campus
and we went and we work with the local
meat market and we work with walmart and
Sam’s and they donate all these supplies
and we go out once to twice a semester
and we do hotdogs cookouts and we set up
a big grill right in the middle the
apartment complex and it’s funny because
when we first get there there’s maybe 10
15 people out mulling around but once
that grill gets going and the smoke gets
into the air and the smell of hot dogs
come out we serve between 300 to 400
people every time that we do it and I
will tell you we’ve done this seven or
eight times now every single time
somebody will come to the line and say
why are you doing this and my favorite
thing to do is just look at them and say
because we love you because there’s no
other reason we want them to know that
we care about them and their kids more
than a button a seat or a number on a
page because that’s what educators
should be doing because you can never
reach a child’s head until you’ve
reached their heart and when we can go
out and serve these communities and I
love this because my teachers show up
too and they go play football
or they sit around in circles and sing
with kids or you watch a kid grab a
teacher by the hand and say can I show
you my room and they get to go out there
I work in a very high poverty area with
almost 90% of my kids on a free and
reduced lunch plan when you are an adult
working in education there’s three kinds
of ways to think about poverty first of
all people hear about poverty and they
think they understand it
second of all people see poverty and
they think they understand it and the
third of all is those people who live
poverty and the people who live in
poverty are the only people that will
ever understand what it’s like to live
in poverty but as educators we try to
connect with those kids and those
families and for a teacher to be able to
walk into the home of a child and see
that it’s a one-bedroom apartment that
17 people live in with a mattress on the
floor and when they go to flip the light
switch the child says now this is the
week that it doesn’t turn on there’s one
week every month that it doesn’t turn on
because we can only pay for three weeks
and then you understand why they fell
asleep in class that next day you
understand why they’re angry or why they
don’t do their homework and you’re able
to connect with them and be there for
them in more ways than just teaching
them the standards that the state
requires of us a good friend of mine
named Angela Myers started a you matter
movement and we have taken that as a
school and we work with every kid to
make sure that every single person that
walks within our building and leaves our
building leaves feeling that they have
Worth that they are valued that they are
important and that they have a genius
that they bring to this world I believe
the third thing that kids deserve is a
cheerleader somebody who will cheer them
on I grew up with a great family who was
always supportive of me they always
encouraged me to do great things there
was one person in my family who I always
had as my cheerleader
and that was my grandmother I remember
standing at her kitchen counter with her
recipe book open and her teaching me how
to crack an egg and how to cook waffles
and sometimes we got baking soda mixed
up with baking powder and messed up the
whole recipe but we still had fun and
got messy together I remember my
grandmother helped me fall in love with
reading I did hated reading until I was
in sixth grade and I found the Animorphs
book series and I have every one of them
still on my shelf at home and she had me
keep an index card box and she said
every time that you read a book I want
you to write what the book is what it
was about and what your favorite part
was and put it in this box and when you
come visit me you’re going to get a
quarter for every book you read and then
I would go and we would get all the
quarters we would go and buy another
book as I got into high school in
college and I started getting some
recognition for some things my
grandmother made me send her every
newspaper article that I was in and I
thought you know it’s grandma she’s just
collecting them when I would go and
visit her she would embarrass me every
time in public because she had those
newspaper articles in her purse and she
would pull them out when we would go
places and say this is my grandson do
you know who he is he’s been in the
paper he did this and it was so
embarrassing and I look back on it now
and I think that just made me feel so
special in the midst of my embarrassment
my grandmother was the strongest person
I’ve ever known I adored her and my
fifth year of teaching she found out
that she had pancreatic cancer and I
watched the strongest woman I know my
cheerleader battle a terrible disease
and I remember my grandfather calling me
about a year and a half of her battling
it and said we took her to the hospital
she stopped eating she stopped taking
her meds she’s done he said she hasn’t
talked to anybody for a couple days you
might want to come and specie her and I
showed up at the hospital that day and I
remember it clear as
a just sitting next to my grandmother
holding her hand
seeing my cheerleader the strongest
person I knew this frail body in a bed
and after sitting with her for about an
hour hour and a half I leaned down and I
hugged her you know forever remember
that she said I love you I was so proud
of you I left the hospital that day and
I got a call a couple days later from my
grandfather that she passed every single
time something great happens in my life
I pick up my phone and she’s still the
first person I want to call and I catch
myself because I realize she’s not going
to be on the other end but I think about
the power that this one person had in my
life
and the power that each of us holds to
be able to be that cheerleader for
someone I work in education so I get the
ability to do that with kids every day
but every one of us comes in contact
with people that we can be their
cheerleaders and we can celebrate them
and remind them that they have Worth
they are valuable that they are
important yes our kids deserve it but we
all deserve to feel that way and when I
think about the theme of horizons and
what’s out there and what we can see in
the possibilities when we take those
moments to encourage each other it
expands our horizons more than we ever
imagined possible thank you