Skip to main content

Sometimes You've Just Gotta Laugh

So the Principal comes rushing into my office yesterday to look out my window. My office faces our lovely peace garden and I have always loved the view. This day was no exception. "Chris! There are two kids kissing on the benches of the peace garden and it's getting kinda racy. A lot of people have been watching from the windows." Great, I thought... Myself and the other Vice Principal thought it might be a good idea to take a stroll into the peace garden, looking as if we were investigating... something. We said 'hello' to the students as we passed by and at that point, there was a safe amount of distance between them. My colleague started pulling out weeds and I kept looking around. I can't imagine how completely and utterly ridiculous we looked, although my suspicions were confirmed by the staff who were watching the whole episode unfold from their office windows. At one point, we even walked up to the students and asked them if they saw anything out of the ordinary and they were very adamant that they had not. They went on to discuss how disappointing it was the students were littering in the peace garden. At the end of our "exchange", my colleague says, "Well, I guess I'll keep a close eye on this place, especially since I have a good view from my office window. Oh! And Mrs. Cosentino, your view is better than mine." We parted ways and the students took calls on their phones. We we got back to our offices, things were REALLY heating up in the garden again, getting very "handsy", if you will. At this point, we tried to do what we could to preserve our students dignity and privacy, especially since modesty had officially gone out the proverbial window. My colleague opened her window and yelled out, "Alright, it's time to go home now." Only THEN did the students dart off faster than I've ever seen most kids move.

I didn't mention the fact that the students were two girls. That wasn't the issue, not even in our Catholic school. Honestly.  Lots of separate issues up for discussion, that's for sure, but quite frankly, I don't want to watch anyone sucking face outside my window, especially in a manner so... enthusiastic,  if you will. Power to them. I was just concerned that passersby might take liberties and begin recording with their phones and who knows what that would have spawned. I thought it was funny that after all that was said and done, my colleague needed the reassurance and had to ask, "we would have done the same if it was a boy and a girl, right?" I'm more than positive that we would have. I think... I hope...
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Catholic Education Week 2020

Tomorrow marks the beginning of Catholic Education Week. It is truly a gift to be able to work in a publicly-funded Catholic school, where we can be free to express our faith so freely and unapologetically. It's a bit sad that we are presently in quarantine and cannot gather in community to celebrate this wonderful gift but my staff and I decided to capitalize on the marvel that is social media to stay connected to our students. We wanted to inspire hope and encourage them from our homes, to theirs. I challenged my staff to select a favourite Scripture passage that they felt evokes a great sense of hope and each day on our school's Twitter feed, I feature a staff member with their quote. I also posted these photos into all of the Google Classrooms that the staff were running for  distance learning. In our special community, where relationships are so key to student success, we thought it was important for the kids to see our faces. We called our little project #motivatedbyfaith...
4 comments
Read more

The Need to Be Liked

My grade 8 teacher was the late (and truly great) Classford Johnson. I remember his class like it was yesterday, including something he used to say on a daily basis: "I don't want to be loved, I want to be understood." As a kid, I knew what he was getting at. He wanted us to respect him, his rules and expectations. If we got along, great. If we didn't, it didn't matter to him as long as we respected him, his rules and his expectations. Most of us loved him. He was tough but fair. He appreciated a good joke and laughed with the rest of us when we something was funny. My memory of Mr. Johnson and his infamous phrase came into my head quite a lot in the days after I had bid farewell to the staff and students of the school I have just left. Admittedly, I was confused. As a kid and as a classroom teacher, I never really paid much mind to what people thought of me. I have always abided by the Golden Rule when it came to my relationships at school and hoped for the best....
3 comments
Read more

Leading During a Pandemic

 Never thought I'd EVER type a title like that.  Pandemics were only events I had taught about during my History classes. The experience thus far can only be described as surreal. It's been a part of our reality for nearly 10 months now and the fear and uncertainty is still not lost on me with the reporting of daily infection and death rates. It has been my single greatest challenge as a leader to date to show up to work everyday imbuing optimism that we're going to be ok, that school is a safe place to be. I have to say that on 98% of those days, I have believed just that. We have be so very fortunate not to have experienced any positive diagnoses of COVID-19 so far. Implementing the new health and safety protocols, while tedious and laborious, has not been all that  difficult. Sure, the work up front was a lot - signage, taping arrows and cues on the walls and floors, rearranging classroom furniture to establish social distancing in the classrooms ... as the Principal, ...
2 comments
Read more