Jacob’s Journal: September 25

I was struck this week on how we all contribute to the collective needs of our students and families.  The creation and implementation of this last week was no easy task.  In fact, the ground work had been set during the last school year in preparation of our Week Without Walls and Junior/Senior programming.  I did my best in the Kudos section to acknowledge the contributions that we all made for this amazing week.  I apologize if I forgot someone or a group, as I belabored quite a while in the Kudos section this week.  Instead, I choose to discuss the bigger implications of this work.

While some of our colleagues were in Thailand and Indonesia working very long days and sacrificing time away from their family and friends, others stepped up here at SSIS to make everything work.  We had a number of hurdles thrown our way on the WWW trips from weather, to student behavior and communication issues.  Back at school we had many classes to cover which did not have substitutes, extremely sick staff members, additional absences due to professional development and complicated schedules and programs created for our juniors and seniors.  I know there were other obstacles that presented themselves this week as well.  It was not the obstacles, but the response of staff that impressed me.  All of us stepped up and took on roles that may have been unfamiliar, uncomfortable and time consuming.  This week we completed a complicated jigsaw puzzle, where the picture/result was unknown.  Individually, we brought a number of jigsaw puzzle pieces together that enabled us to create a beautiful and collaborative mosaic of experiences for our students.

Have an amazing weekend,

Jacob