What is a recipe for “school”? We start with families and educators from different backgrounds, we bring them all together, including their expectations, execution behaviors and varying values. Conflict should not be surprising. It’s a lot like family. At best, it’s messy! Schools are like that. We are family.
People are pretty forgiving when it comes to other people's families.
The only family that ever horrifies you is your own.
— Douglas Coupland
We are family. It's a fun song and it's often used by schools to describe their culture.
But families are tricky: stable, volatile, safe, risky, inseparable, divided, and so on.
If a TV show was used to define our organizational culture, which is most accurate?
All in the Family. Modern Family. Family Feud. The Addams Family. This Is Us.
Schools are indeed as complex as families—which makes sense since schools are formed through the coalescing of many families with all of their features and faults.
A family is a place where principles are hammered and honed
on the anvil of everyday living.
— Charles Swindoll
Mixing families into the emotional ecosystem of a school yields predictable struggle. Schools are places where learning, growth, failure, creativity, and maturity occur.
Schools are places of difficult negotiation, rather than offering peaceful co-existence.
Schools are places of overcoming challenges, rather than just compliant adherence.
Schools are places of resilience in the fire of testing, rather than curricular hideouts.
Schools are places of advancement not retreat, pressing forward toward what's next.
Above all, love each other deeply,
because love covers over a multitude of sins.
— I Peter 4:8
Schools are difficult by design! And that understanding helps shift our expectations.
They contain all of the ideal ingredients needed for adversity, rumbling, and strife.
Peace and stability are simply not on the menu of most educational institutions, so perhaps our marketing and enrollment message should honestly reflect this reality.
Without proper tools and skills, it's hard to overcome these human tendencies that make leading and managing a family culture so messy.
Thank you for your service! And thank you for being the glue that enables a cohesive family to stick together through the everyday testing of school life.
