The Words of my Whys: By Geoff Stubbs
I am so excited to introduce (or reintroduce) myself to many of you as the new upper elementary and middle school principal! While I have loved working with grades K-3, the lower elementary is in good hands with Ms. Trust, who brings so much experience and familiarity with the needs of that population.
In the spirit of introductions, I wanted to share with you my “whys” as an educator. At a recent training, one of the speakers mentioned that nobody gets up in the morning for 5% growth on the state test. While we believe in setting the bar high for our students and giving them the opportunities to reach their highest potential, I don’t do this for a couple extra percentage points on the ISATs.
My first “why” is the quest for the perfect middle school programming. I started my teaching career teaching English to 7th Graders at Teton Middle School in Driggs, Idaho. While I had originally hoped to be a high school teacher, I quickly realized that middle school was the perfect fit for my temperament. I became fascinated by the unique needs of middle school students. I learned how detrimental treating them like little high schoolers can be. Upper elementary and middle school students, as they enter adolescence are experiencing the most rapid period of brain development they will in their lives. This is when, if provided the correct environment, ideas begin to snap together in these students’ brains like magnets as their prefrontal cortices come online in a major way. The abstract suddenly begins to make sense. Coupled with enormous social changes socially due to the simultaneous, instinctual needs for independence from their parents and to belong to a social group of their peers, this makes for an incredibly exciting, but delicate time in a child’s life. I spent the next 10 years of my career teaching middle school and working with my colleagues to push our middle school programming to the next level.
My second “why” is tied to the Treasure Valley Y (see what I did there?). Before I became a teacher, from age 13 to 24, I worked as a camp counselor with the YMCA in Boise. Since I was a camper myself, I have been steeped in the YMCA’s core values of caring, honesty, respect, and responsibility. These were seen in all levels of the organization, but most obviously in the Y’s commitment to refusing to turn families away due to an inability to pay. Though we were never told who these students were, you could tell on day one the haves from the have-nots. The magic of camp was that these differences disappeared. For that week, that was your family, and you accepted everybody because that’s what families do. You also learned that everybody has some invisible load they are carrying. If you did your job right as a counselor, maybe they got to put that burden down for a bit that week. Living these values and helping others became core tenets of what makes me tick. It drives my belief that all those who I work with deserve to be seen, heard, and respected.
Finally, my last “why” is rooted in my belief in a high-quality free public education. There are two seminal moments in my life in which private education essentially saved me. The first was in kindergarten when my parents were told by the administration that, “well, some kids are just slow.” I spent the the rest of kindergarten and all of first grade in this early childhood education center before reentering public school.
The second moment was in my sophomore year at Timberline High School. I found myself on a pretty steady road toward dropping out the next year. I had terrible relationships with my teachers. My relationships with my peers weren’t much better. I had a group of people who appeared to tolerate me, but for the most part, I felt alone and friendless. I fought with my parents constantly and settled into a sort of numb hopelessness that I figured would just be my normal.
It was a boarding school in Southern California that helped provide me with community, structure, and support. Though a boarding school, the school had a focus on self-reliance and responsibility to one’s community. Custodial jobs were divided among the students and the seniors were cast in managerial roles. You picked up after yourself because you recognized that the person you sit next to in chemistry is the person who might have to clean it up.
While this was a private school, I find nothing “private” about the values this format provided. It was a simple maxim really, “You have responsibilities to yourself and those around you” You want something? Go get it. Sick of trash on the ground? Pick it up. You see a classmate struggling? Help them. Are you struggling? Ask for help. I find it ridiculous that my access to this sort of environment, built on a strong sense of “servant leadership” was behind a paywall, making it unavailable to many of those it would most benefit.
Servant leadership is at the core of the questions we as a school ask when we consider what we want White Pine to be. How do we help students see that they are the main thing that will make them successful? How do we provide students with the appropriate support to push them to take the lead in their lives? How do we point students in the right direction and stay mindful to always keep moving forward? When do we lend a helping hand, but also to remember to stay out of their way as they progress?
As I considered the fates of so many kids in our community, for a long time I felt guilty. It’s not fair that I should succeed where so many have not just because my parents could pay for private school at the times when my education was in crisis. I have come to understand that life isn’t fair, but we can always strive for it to be more. Now my guilt is replaced with a mission to help push education forward in a direction that seeks to fill the cracks a “one size fits all” education leaves. Every student in our country deserves the opportunities I had, and it is not fair that I got those opportunities based only on the fact that my parents could pay for them. I believe that White Pine is uniquely positioned to help connect students with those sorts of opportunities regardless of money. While we cannot be everything to everybody, we can be a force of positive change for those who choose to partner with us in pursuit of academic and formative success for their child.
The only thing we ask as White Pine is that you try. Whether you are the director of schools or the kindergarten parent who is still grappling with the idea of, “what do you mean I just point them towards the playground and drive away?!” that expectation is the same. We are all in this together. Teamwork makes the dream work. Now let’s make it happen!
