Getting over myself and getting on with it

I know I haven't kept up with posting like I wanted to or said I would, but I have done a ton of reflecting over the past couple of weeks, and I'm both eager and nervous about getting started in my school next Monday.  So many questions going through my head and nearly every single one is about me, not the job, not the process, ME...how am I going to hold it together and yet grow through all this?

We hear all the time about the different ways of leading--by example, by teaching, by doing, etc--but then last week during our last class we were told that our primary job in this year's internship is to Lead by Learning.  Hmm...wow...What in the world does that mean?  Ok, I mean, I theoretically know what the words mean, but how exactly does one equate the two parts (leading and learning) without one of the other "by"s mentioned earlier or simply reverting to the cliched title Life-long Learner?  Just another one of those profound statements that gets filed away for another day when I have something more concrete to connect it to...and then someone brings it up again: "Your job is to Lead by Learning."  Fine, I get it; time to figure this out and make it a goal.  So, here is my brain dump.

I've always looked at the titles "learners," "teachers," and "leaders" as having two catergories: the natural and the created.  There are some people to whom all three of these things come naturally; that's not to say that they can't develop strong skills in each, but for the most part, these "naturals" rarely struggle through the process.  Those people who create themselves as one or all go through some often difficult struggles in order to reach a level of success; they may not like the process or even want to be in the category really, but they make it there over time.  My conundrum comes from the fact that these things have always felt very natural to me; I never really had to work at them, at least I didn't feel like it was much work.  I've also had a hard time understanding the struggles of others for whom they don't come naturally, often catching myself saying "What are they thinking?" or "How do they not just get that?"  These questions in my own head have always been a challenge with my patience, or lack thereof.

Hmmm...patience.  Yeah, definitely never been one of my strong points.  In fact, I don't think it existed until late into my first year of teaching, and then it came on like a switch, but only with the students.  People who know me well, including my mom, would joke and ask me how in the world I survived as a teachers because I have NO patience for people. Heck, I often asked myself the same question, and all I could come up with is that I don't expect children, even high-school-aged children, to behave the same way as I expect semi-educated adults to act.  It's not that I have no patience for "people"; I just have little patience for things like complacency, apathy, selfishness, and feigned ignorance (What I call Boboism: knowing how and choosing not to). I especially have little patience for these things with professional adults who I expect to at least fake it well enough to still do their job appropriately because that's what they're paid to do.  So, yeah, hmmm, Lead by Learning.

I have a goal for this year and that's to struggle through this patience with adults thing.  It was a bit easier when I was in the classroom because I could close my door, work with my students, and hope that they not only learned the content I was teaching but also how to be a little less of those things that try my patience.  When I left the classroom, I learned that I had to tamp down that impatience in order to work with other teachers more directly; it has truly been an effort in learning to control my behavior in light of someone else's--reactive rather than proactive.  Moving into this new role requires that I learn how to ask "What can I do to help you see things differently?" rather than "WTF are you thinking?"  It's no longer appropriate to avoid these types of conversations, and so I need to LEARN how to LEAD through them.  Easier said than done, but necessary.

Wish me luck!