What is the Norm?

What is the Norm?

If you are an educator, almost everything revolves around your kids at school and/or your kids at home. Obviously, the last few days were no different. Likewise, the technological, global society we started living in during the last century enables us to take real-time, anytime learning and teaching wherever we go.

On Monday, April 17, 2013 I was walking down a hallway of our school around 2:50PM when the Twitter account on my phone was going crazy. I checked my phone to find a news alert that said there were two explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

Even though I am probably overly vigilant as a middle school principal, I immediately thought of the best case scenario as I was talking to a colleague. He said it was probably pyrotechnics at the finish line. My positive expectations quickly took a dark turn as I realized that it was malicious.

When I returned to my home, I was glued to the television as was my whole family. It wasn’t exactly a well-planned family night but my younger daughter (11 years old) had a lot of questions. These questions are becoming redundant.

Here I am angry (again) because some extremist idiot sucked up all of the mass media for a negative reason. And even though it was not a school this time, these occurrences are too common place. I keep explaining to my children at home that they are safe. My eleven-year-old’s reaction is, “Are you sure, daddy?”

The problem is: I’m not sure, and although always vigilant, there are circumstances we cannot control. I’m certainly not altering my attendance at an event with our school or a vacation with my family. I feel sorry for the people that refuse to see that people should always “be treated better than you want to be treated.” It always works. No matter what your status or how much money you make or not, BE NICE. I know this will not be the philosophy of extremists but hopefully BE NICE will continue to resonate in our school.

And there I was yesterday, in a convenience store, on my way to work doing something I started once a week after 9/11: buying a stranger behind me a cup of coffee. When I did, he said, “Really, you don’t have to do that.”  It was different this time because my voice quivered as I said, “Yes I do because this is the United States of America and we can be nice to each other. Have a great day!” He walked away with a smile.

At my oldest daughter’s high school they started a positive Tweeting campaign. They set up a few Twitter accounts where students Tweet each other compliments. Great idea! Now that is powerful. That is a wonderful way to use social media in schools.

Peace.

@DrFrankRud