I just realized yesterday that this March represented the end of my 5th year and beginning of my 6th year of writing this blog. The actual birthday of this blog is February 20th, but I was too busy with basketball games to worry about a blog birthday then. However, with the beginning of March and spring coming, I am going to acknowledge this milestone today with this post.
There is always a story behind the start of anything, and this one starts with my Dad who regularly told me I should be writing my experiences and thoughts about them down. By the way, he walks his talk as he writes regularly too now into his mid-80's. Somewhere in my childhood home is his daily diary from the late 1930's to the mid-1940's. It is an incredible historical record of his early life. Although I think sometimes he rolls his eyes about his early adolescent musings.
But like lots of people, I ignored my father for many years. Why would I spend my valuable time writing on a daily basis?
But I started following a couple blogs and was impressed with the development of the writers thinking. One of my favorites has always been my friend and mentor Vern Gambetta's Functional Path Training. Vern started this in part because he had a professional dilemma, and his blog helped him work his way out of that dilemma.
And in part that is why I started writing. Because in early February 2011 a parent asked me a question that I struggled answering.
The question was "can you explain this." The word "this" is just a substitute for any number of references to specific odd situations. It was a reasonable question, but I felt unprepared to answer in a cogent manner. I wanted to say, "huh, explain this. No way! I just work here."
I actually think sometimes there isn't a good answer to why things at school happen. Former Head of the Upper School Paul Perkinson used to say "schools just get messy." And that seems more than reasonable answer in lots of situations.
So in trying to answer this question that flummoxed me, I thought I had a couple options. I could ignore the question. I could blame it on someone else. I could make and excuse. Or I could try to answer the question and explain myself.
I decided to try and explain myself and now 1400 posts later and close to 650,000 pageviews I am not done yet. I am still trying, and writing this blog is one of my favorite activities.
I concluded the fact we don't have a good answer for a school or athletic situation should mean we need to struggle a little more. The people I respect most in coaching and education always can explain why they are doing what they are doing and they can anticipate the response. I used to love to playing tennis with one of my early coaching mentors, John Schneiter, who could hit the ball to me and he knew before I even began my return where I would hit it back. So even as he aged he never had to move much to beat me. I hope eventually to be like that. Schools do get messy, but the really great ones can anticipate that mess and know how to volley that return right back.
So this blog was the result of me struggling to explain "this" to whoever wanted to listen. I hope to write it as long as I can. And I want to thank everyone who has written me a note of encouragement over the years to keep on writing.
No comments:
Post a Comment