I have a new embodiment!
From a different sport...and it's not even one of my teams!
It’s that time of year again!
We are getting back together as a staff tomorrow, and on Friday I will have 20 minutes to chat with everyone: not enough time to do all that I want to do, but maybe enough time to pick one task and postpone the others to a promised slot of time at a staff meeting in September. I have exactly two goals for the start of the year: get to know everybody’s values and sell them on the wonder of data-based coaching cycles.
But which to do first? I’ve got to start the year off learning about where each of my teachers are at the start of the year. Without that, it will be way harder to get to any data cycles.
This still means asking the big embodiment question.
I deeply considered dumping this activity this year: this will be the fourth year I’ve asked this of the staff, and I worry about it getting rote. Like, are teachers just going to view this question as the weird thing that Paul asks them every year, and then check off the box?
I went ahead and texted twelve teachers I trust a couple of weeks ago to ask them if it was time for something new. By an 10-1 vote (with one undecided), they want the embodiment question back. In fact–and this really impressed me–three of the teachers talked about how they were already thinking deeply about whether their embodiments from the past years are still what they want to bring into their professional worlds this year.
So on Friday, this will be back. But there will be a change.
After three years of me choosing Alex English as an embodiment, I have decided it is time for a change.
Bye, bye, Alex. You live on in my instructional coach heart. (photo credit: Rocky Widner)
I can totally understand the conflict between keeping the same embodiment through the years and of switching it up. On the one hand, having a solid, consistent North Star of values is not the worst thing in the world. In my case, English’s excellence-without-braggodocio, his universally being trusted by his teammates and respected by his opponents because he gets the job done (rather than because he brags about getting the job done), spoke to me. He was a pretty instinctive choice for me that first year, and each year since, I have re-considered my work situation and decided that he was still what I was striving for professionally.
Not this year. A little bit of my shift is because I want to model for the teachers that changing your values and the best self you want to bring to work is acceptable. There’s more change than usual at the school this year, with a new admin team, some new priorities from on high, and quite a few new teaching assignments. It could be that our teachers need new skills and even new selves this year to succeed. So I want to walk them through that thinking.
Mostly, however, I have decided that, while English’s excellence, uniqueness, and elegance are still things I value–and while the four basketball cards of English teachers have graciously gifted me with will remain on the bulletin board in my office–that I want to value something else this year.
More than anything this year, I want teachers to feel good about being in my presence. I want them to feel loved and valued. To do that, I am hoping to radiate not just professionalism and excellence, but warmth, kindness, and just generally be a good friend–a good hang.
That’s when Vin Scully popped into my head–and as soon as he did, I knew he would be my new embodiment for this year.
photo credit: Variety
I can’t claim Scully is “my guy” in the same way I can claim Alex English. There is nothing quite as personal to a sports-crazed person as their favorite athlete when they were 12. Because of this, it was actually kind of tough to change. I have no connection to the Dodgers. My love of Scully stems from seeing him on the NBC Game of the Week on Saturdays growing up, and then always choosing to watch the Dodger games on MLB.TV through the last years of his career, because hearing that voice was so special.
Whatever that quality is that made me want to hang out with him is the quality I am trying to foreground at work this year.
But beyond that, there’s more:
Scully had unimpeachable knowledge of the game and (in my time listening to him) more experience than anyone.
Even so, anyone tuning into a Dodger game–big seamheads, passionate fans, casual fans, people who didn’t know baseball that well–was made to feel welcome by Scully. They each learned a little something as well, regardless of the level of knowledge or excitement they brought to the table.
As I read up on Scully, I learned that early in his career, Dodger executives pressured him to become a little more of a “homer” in his announcing. He refused. During the (rare) bad Dodger years, he certainly didn’t sugarcoat things. He’d tell things the way they were. But even in hard times, people still wanted to join him. I strive for that combination in my conversations with teachers.
In his last game, when Scully gave his farewell address to the crowd at Dodger Stadium, he said this: “I know in my heart that I’ve always needed you more than you’ve ever needed me.” This is how I feel about the teachers I work with. I hope that I am able to communicate this to them effectively.
I will give the teachers a second question to answer in case they don’t care for their embodiment. They each will also tell me what word in the dictionary they want to see their picture next to. (For me, this year, it is “warmth.”) Those words will be useful for me to learn about my colleagues.
But the embodiment is special to me. I have always found the embodiment question to be ideal information for me to have in mind when I work with a teacher, whether in good times or in bad. On Friday, they will get that same information about me, and I hope that it helps them understand why I am so excited to continue this wonderful adventure with them for year 8.
“Hi, everybody, and a very pleasant first day of school to you, wherever you may be.”
Vin Scully. Let’s do this.