I’ve always loved working in middle schools and being a middle school teacher. Loved it. I have worked at higher education, high school, early childhood, and elementary levels, but my sweet spot is middle school. Most people I know—especially other educators—react to that idea with an expression somewhere between amusement and abject horror. Some find middle school students are hard to like and even harder to engage and educate. Middle schoolers can be unsure of themselves, are often very concrete thinkers, and are easily distracted and distraught by things we might consider unimportant. But they’re also endearingly complex.
 
And I love the complexity of middle school and the middle school student's mind. Inspiring these students, opening their minds to new ideas, watching them develop into critical and deep thinkers, is exhilarating. You feel like you are helping the students who need it the most. The middle school years are such important years. I think I’ve always known that in a way, but there is an emerging body of research that supports this thinking. More than that, the research points to the K-8 configuration as being the optimal learning environment for middle school students. 

Almost all of my 23-plus year career as an independent school teacher and administrator has happened in K-8 schools. I currently have the honor of serving as a Head of School at a Pre-K–8 school. And although the research around this configuration affirms my professional choices, I find it is now also affirming the decisions my wife and I have made for our children. Both of our kids attend the Pre-K–8 school where I serve as Head.
 
My son is in fourth grade this year, and as he approaches middle school, I’ve never been more confident in or appreciated the Pre-K–8 configuration and its benefits. I see those benefits for our middle schoolers every day as I walk the halls.
 
So I am heartened to know that the research points out that my son, and eventually his first-grade sister, will likely do better academically, socially, and emotionally because of their environment. I am happy to learn that schools with our Pre-K–8 configuration have less bullying than traditional stand-alone middle schools. I am thrilled that my son and daughter will have real leadership opportunities that could not be had if they were attending a middle school absent of younger students or attached to a high school (not to mention not having to worry about growing up too fast among high schoolers).

Finding happiness through gratitude

I want to be happy. I want my wife and children to be happy. I’m pretty sure I want that more than I want anything else in life. And like most people, I had little idea how to make that happen.
 
Most of my life has been geared toward attaining happiness through achievement and accumulation—grades, degrees, jobs, money, cars, the best schools, nice clothes, a big house. I’ve tried finding happiness in all of those things. And it hasn’t really worked. Sure, there are fleeting moments of joy that come from such attainments, but nothing that is deep or lasting or truly meaningful.
 
Things changed for me recently.
 
Several weeks ago, I watched a WellCast video that changed my outlook and gave me some clarity on finding happiness. It’s nothing earth-shattering. In fact, it’s really simple and straightforward, and perhaps that’s why I have found it so inspiring.
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Being happy is all about being GRATEFUL. It turns out that expressing gratitude is scientifically proven to make us happier. As humans we tend to stabilize at one level of happiness. It’s a concept known as the hedonic treadmill, the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes. Some things may cause your happiness to spike—like winning a fantasy football game or a phone call from your mother-in-law—but generally speaking, your level of happiness stays constant whether you are on the golf course or at the dentist.
 
Why? Because we take things that make us happy for granted and, consequently, they stop boosting our spirits. The cure? Not just being grateful, but actively expressing our gratitude. By practicing gratitude and constantly reflecting on what we are grateful for and why, we stop ignoring what makes us happy.
 
This was such a simple revelation with tremendous implications for me, my family, and for the students and parents at our school. 
 
Each year on the first day of school, the entire school gathers together and I give the students the theme for the year. The theme is often a character trait we want the students to practice and reflect on over the course of the year.  Our theme for this year?… You guessed it—gratitude. I showed the students and faculty the WellCast video and then talked to them about being happy and showing gratitude as a path to happiness.
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Almost immediately I could tell that the theme of gratitude resonated with the community. There were lots of nodding heads in the audience, but it wasn’t until small sticky notes started popping up around the school on random students’ lockers, teachers’ desks, administrators’ computers—all expressing gratitude for those people—that I understood how much they internalized the message, and how much they were enjoying expressing their gratitude. It wasn’t just sticky notes. Teachers immediately incorporated the theme of gratitude into their writing assignments and student journaling. I heard more “thank you’s” directed towards the students, teachers, dining staff, and maintenance crew. A number teachers expressed gratitude to me personally for a variety of reasons—both large and small. And I to them. And so on it went. 
 
The building seemed happier to me than at any point in my three plus years as Head.  For that I am truly grateful. But expressing gratitude has had a major impact on me personally. After all, I have to practice what I preach.
 
So I began telling my children how grateful I am for them. I told my son how grateful I was to have a son who put so much time, effort, and thought into his school work. I told my daughter how grateful I was for her incredible creativity and artistic ability and how much joy that brought to us as her parents. And that I was grateful that both of my children have shown themselves to be good and supportive friends to their classmates. I’m sure my wife is wondering when all of this gratitude is going to make its way to her. (Be patient, wife, I’m trying and I’ll get there! But that’s a whole other blog.)
 
But it didn’t just apply to my family or my school in Buffalo. I started expressing gratitude to my friends, especially my long-term friends who have been with me through many different stages of my life. I let them know how I appreciated their constant support, friendship, and help throughout the years. Most of them thought I was dying of some horrible disease until I told them I was just feeling grateful. And of course they took the opportunity to express their gratitude back. I’m sure they still think I’m a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but I’m good with that. It made me happier, and I hope it made them happier too. 
 
Three weeks ago, I attended a reunion of students at a school in Maryland where I once worked. It was so much fun and so gratifying to see so many of the young adolescent boys whom I taught and coached doing so well as young adults. I made a point to tell those students how much I loved them and appreciated our time together and what a special part of my life they had occupied. Was it weird for them? Probably. But it sure felt great doing it. And it gave me energy and made me happy—and I’m still riding that high as I write this. And you know what?  Most of those former students echoed the same feelings back at me.  I expressed my gratitude and without expecting anything in return, they seized an opportunity to express gratitude back.  It was powerful. And it made me happier.
 
Listen, I know life is much more complicated than simply saying “thank you” all the time, but I can’t help but think that if more of us took the time to practice gratitude and to receive the gratitude of others that there would be less bullying in schools, fewer workplace spats, and hopefully fewer tragic incidents like the ones that have occurred recently in Las Vegas, New York City, and Texas. Is that an oversimplification? A pipe dream? Ridiculous?  Maybe.
 
For now I’ll focus on my own little universe. My challenge is to sustain all these good vibes floating around my existence. To avoid being a hamster on my own hedonic treadmill. But I feel like I’m aware and I’ve made a start and right now, I’m grateful for that. ​​

​As I boarded my flight to Shanghai, China on a Friday morning recently, I was in a foul mood. I had been delayed two days by a mid-March snowstorm that Buffalo seems to specialize in every year, and truth be told, I was not looking forward to the trip in the first place. I was off for a two-week jaunt to the Middle Kingdom to recruit students for our school, it having recently started an international student program. While it was very important to our ever-diversifying school community that I go, I was going to miss the majority of spring break with my family in Florida. 

My foul mood was the result of three things really. One was the snow, as the delay meant I would miss a major recruiting event in China. This was a business trip after all. Two was missing R&R time with my family. But what was really bothering me was having to spend two weeks being uncomfortable. As an American, I am used to being comfortable and used to the rest of the world making me comfortable. (In earlier travels through Central America and Europe everyone spoke English with some competency and shared somewhat Western ways—it made things easy for visiting Americans.) 

But China would be different. There would be a complex and mysterious language and new cultural norms, and from what I heard and read, there would be lesser attempts by the locals to speak English or to understand my ways of thinking and being. I would have to adjust, and I could feel myself already taking up the position of the ugly American. Heck, I just finished three paragraphs complaining about a free trip across the globe. What’s uglier than that?

Additionally, I knew I would be eating food that at best I wasn’t interested in and at worst was totally grossed out by, and that I would be living among and interacting with people whose customs and traditions I didn’t understand (and perhaps worst of all didn’t want to understand.)

In short, I’m a huge hypocrite. I have spent my years as both an educator and father imploring my students and my children to be open to growth. I am consistently preaching the importance of leaning into discomfort and embracing failure as the pathway to growth--both personal and academic. 

But my attitude about this trip was all wrong. And it was based--like most instances of implicit bias--in ignorance and fear. I’m not proud of it and I don’t know how else to say it. But there it is. 

Luckily, I managed to get ahold of myself before I landed in Shanghai and promised myself I would embrace every experience that came my way on this trip. (Perhaps binge-watching the entire Harry Potter movies series on the 16-hour flight gave me renewed perspective. Who knows?) And I did.

It had incredible museums and architecture.

It had uniquely delicious food (although I’m not sure I’ll yearn to try pig intestines again any time soon. Or in this lifetime.)

And most importantly, it had amazing schools with great facilities and teachers and enthusiastic students who wanted to both share with and learn from me.

​So as I sat in the Shanghai airport pounding a Whopper (rest assured I’ll never take you for granted or look down on you again, Burger King), and waited for my connecting flights to Florida to join my family on spring break, I can honestly say that this trip was life changing. I experienced people, culture, and food that was so foreign and uncomfortable, but yet so amazing. By following my own advice—by being open to growth and leaning into the discomfort—I made an unforgettable memory and grew as a person. It turns out living that advice is way better than giving it. 

You can check out a few more highlights from my trip below.

Each year, a local business publication in Western New York ranks the area schools—both public and private. And each year, Elmwood Franklin School does not appear in these rankings. It is not because we are not a top school. I would argue that we are the best school in Buffalo.
 
We are not ranked for a simple reason—the elementary and middle school rankings are based solely on specific standardized test results.
 
As a school, we have made the decision not to participate in regents or Common Core testing.  We have no desire to have a standardized test or its results drive our instruction or our student learning. We want our children to love learning for the sake of learning, thus creating what we hope are lifelong learners. And we want control over what we teach and how and when we teach it. It’s the beauty of an independent school.
 
The absence of both “teaching to the test” and of having instruction time consumed by test preparation drives interest in our school during admissions season and is consistently mentioned by incoming parents as one of the reasons why they have chosen our school for their children. Parents want their kids to love coming to school and to learn in an environment that takes a broad view of education, including character education, service learning, outdoor education, public speaking, and an emphasis on creative thinking. I know it’s what I want for my kids.
 
But there are drawbacks to not participating. While it can drive interest in our school, it can also create confusion around our outcomes. We often have to explain to interested parents that we are not ranked because we don’t participate in the testing. And some parents love rankings—school rankings, class rankings, teacher rankings, etc. They have a need to quantify, and who can blame them? We all want help in making the best decisions for our children. But do these rankings really do that? Do standardized test results really tell you which school is best? According to this criteria, one could argue that ranking schools based on standardized test results is really just ranking schools by which has the best group of test takers.
 
I would argue that good schools should focus more on creating a culture where students feel comfortable, feel known, and feel some form of self-determination. These are basic human needs and without these being satisfied, children cannot learn. On top of that, schools should focus on teaching children how to think creatively around problems and how to do so with other people. In my opinion, these are skills every adult needs to function in the workplace—no matter what the field.
 
Our school focuses on these essentials, which is not to say that we don’t teach reading, writing and arithmetic (among a slew of other academic disciplines and extracurriculars). But weaving creativity and collaboration into a rigorous academic program is a big part of what makes us a great school.
 
As a result of focusing on what matters, our kids do really well. They get into the high school of their choosing and they earn hundreds of thousands of dollars in merit scholarship money each year doing it. And guess what else? Our students do really well on standardized tests, too. No, we don’t participate in regents or Common Core testing, but we do administer nationally-normed standardized tests (a requirement of our accreditation) to appropriate grade levels—the ERB Comprehensive Testing Program and the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test. The results are used internally to inform our curriculum decisions.
 
While we don’t spend time preparing our students for the tests, we get great results nonetheless. By the time our students reach eighth grade, 75% score in the top quartile and almost half score in the top 10% nationally in both math and verbal reasoning on the ERB’s. On the Otis Lennon test, the average score is 100. The average score of our students is 119, which places them in the top 14% nationally.
 
To me this proves that when a school focuses on the right things—culture, creativity, and collaboration—in addition to strong academics, the test results take care of themselves.

In June, I put diplomas in the hands of twenty-nine fine young men and women. They are off to high school this fall, and each year graduation causes a great deal of personal reflection on why it is that I do what I do.  And whether or not I do it well.
 
I have endured, participated in, and downright caused many failures in my twenty years as an educator.  But my greatest failures occur when I view children as they are, instead of what they can be or will be. When I used words like CAN’T and WON’T instead of CAN and WILL. 
 
As parents, teachers, and adults, we are all susceptible to this great temptation. The temptation to see these young people at times as finished products. They are anything but.
 
I have learned that the most important word in the English language is YET.  One word, three letters, massive implications. 
 
As my good friend and fellow Head of School Joe Powers wrote, the word YET implies there is more to come, more work to be done, and that growth is expected. 
 
As an educator I cannot think of a more important or meaningful word.  YET.
 
Our children and students have amazed and frustrated us for years.  We think we know them.  We think we know what they are about.  What they are good at and what they are not so good at.  What they like and what they don’t like.  Who they are and who they aren’t. We think we know them.
 
We don’t.  We can’t. They’re not done YET.
 
Our children CAN and WILL, if we allow them the space to fail and allow ourselves to be patient and wait.  No easy task.
 
But the world is full of incredible people for whom YET was instrumental. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. Katy Perry’s first album sold only 200 copies.  In 1995, all twelve major book publishers rejected JK Rowling’s script for Harry Potter. Henry Ford’s first car company, the Detroit Automobile Company, went bankrupt, and Thomas Edison once famously wrote, “I now definitely know over 9,000 ways an electric light bulb will not work. Success is almost in my grasp.”
 
Our children and students face the same temptation. I hear all the time from students, “I can’t write well,” “I don’t understand geometric proofs,” “I can’t hit a curveball.”  The only appropriate response to those statements is YET.
 
But YET does not happen without hard work, time management, perseverance, grit, and a growth mindset.
 
So challenge your children as they make their way through the world to allow themselves the time and space to fail and to be imperfect, to learn and grow, and as author Dr. Carol Dweck said in her TedTalk, “To live in places filled with YET. “
 
And challenge yourself as parents and friends to let them. 

I am a consumer of opinions. I go to parenting and education conferences and seminars often, and I read blogs, open letters, Facebook posts, and articles written by people of diverse backgrounds and opinions on a variety of educational topics. I am particularly interested in technology and how it is impacting education. No doubt there are many thoughts and opinions on technology in the classroom. (WARNING: If you are someone who thinks technology will be responsible for the fall of Western civilization, stop reading now.)

I recently attended a conference for school heads where one of the keynote presentations was by an Ivy League-educated researcher on technology and education. I was hoping to be inspired and pick up some great ideas to bring back to Buffalo. Instead, I was treated to a one-hour rant about all the evils of technology. It was off-putting and not very helpful to a head of school.

I often find myself disheartened by the alarmist opinions about how technology is destroying our society and our children’s lives. I’m not talking about the warnings about predators and cyber bullying. I am aware of and very concerned by these issues. I’m referring to those who lament the loss of paper and pen communication. What will become of handwritten notes? What about holding a real book? And, good heavens, what about the lost art of cursive handwriting?  Oh, the humanity!

I am much more interested in how technology enriches our lives and how it can be leveraged to transform learning. Because it is not going away. Our school has a one-to-one iPad program beginning in 4th grade. Many others schools have something similar. Technology is much more than a substitution for paper and pen. And the benefits of technology are not limited to young students.

So tell me about how technology increases brain activity and re-wires the brain to work more efficiently. Tell me about the engaging and exciting ways curriculum can be delivered to kids in the 21st century. Show me TED Talks, TeacherTube, and other sites sharing information that can change and enrich the lives of my students. Use phrases like “individualized learning technology,” and teach me that students no longer have to wait until the later college years to choose what they learn. 

But don’t tell me to be afraid. There are a bunch of things of which I should be afraid—social security running out before I retire, large spiders, the presidential candidates, my mother-in-law (just kidding, Sass). Technology isn’t one of them.

Believe it or not, most of the questions I get from parents as a Head of School have nothing to do with curriculum or schedules or assessments. Most are about parenting. And most parents want my input on how to raise happy, smart, and motivated kids (check out this really great article on how to do that). Now I am 42, and truth be told, I am finding my way through this whole parenting thing myself. I often joke with people that I run a school of 300 students and 298 of them listen to me, referencing my own lack of skill at handling my seven-year-old son and four-year-old daughter. At times I feel just as clueless as the next parent when it comes to raising my kids. The irony of course is that I have a ton of training and degrees in the latest and greatest ways to educate children.

But I catch myself at times (when I am frustrated or tired) engaging my children as peers rather than as children. I am fond of telling other parents when referring to my kiddos that I don't “negotiate with terrorists." But I do. I consult them rather than parent them. This article, which includes an interview with noted family physician and psychologist Dr. Leonard Sax, reminds me that I have to stop doing that and trust myself more as a parent. My parents were amazing.  I know what good parenting looks like.  

Parenting is a benevolent dictatorship, not a democracy. Now, sure, there are times when choice and a voice are appropriate and productive, but there is nothing wrong with saying, "Because I'm your father/mother and I said so." It has become an often repeated phrase in our house in the last few years, and I am not apologizing for it. We don't have to justify our decisions to our children. They are not our peers and some decisions are not theirs to make, such as what they eat for dinner, when they get to use the iPad, and where they go to school. Those are my decisions as a parent. Whether they know it or not, children crave firm boundaries and clear directions. It helps them to feel safe and enables them to learn. Oh, and it helps them to be happy, smart, and motivated, too.