HEART!. Timothy D. Kanold
all, our heart is at the center of our personal and professional lives.
It was in the recovery room at the hospital (and the subsequent next five years of often difficult follow-up procedures) that my desire to write this book began. More than ever, I realized how fragile life could be. The heart of our classrooms, our school, and our district seems to be the way we should measure our professional journey. Otherwise, why would we choose such a relationally intense profession, a profession that calls for understanding the role our heart plays?
Like me, you too may or may not be drifting into patterns of behavior that will damage your heart for educating students and colleagues. It depends on the personal and professional school season you are in. Maybe you have lost your passion for the work. Maybe your personality seems a bit edgy these days. Maybe you are tired of the constant preparation and follow-up work required. Maybe you are just tired. Maybe your perseverance meter ran out. Maybe you hide it so well that sadly, like me, no one from your professional or personal life will notice until it might be too late.
The day will come in your career when you will pack up all your boxes and wonder, “Did I make a difference?” “Was my heart right for the work I did?” “Did my work life matter?” And most important, you will ask, “What is the residue of my work life and effort on the students and colleagues I left (and am leaving) behind?”
And, how will you know?
Well, I suppose that’s the point of reading this book. It’s why I wrote it. I want you to know. I want you to connect and reconnect to and be mindful of your choices in doing the complex work of an educator.
Have you and I chosen wisely?
I have tried to approach this book with humor, research, experiences, reflection, hope, mindfulness, and meaningfulness—which are, of course, in the eye and the practice of the reader.
Teaching, when properly understood as a career of positive emotion and action, is such a wonderful gift you can give—a gift of your heart and your life to others. I hope this book can be a gift to your heart, a gift that both enriches your natural talent and helps you to become more intentional about your own professional practice for the personal marathon of your professional teaching life.
Václav Havel says, “The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and human responsibility.”1 This book is about the very human heart for our work as educators. It is about feeling and seeing the genius in every child. It is about deeper reflection. It is about a happy and healthy humility of spirit combined with a passion for our responsibility to help each and every student and colleague that joins us along our career path.
Introduction
This book is quite a ride! You will learn about parts of my professional journey while reflecting upon and discovering your own journey as well. You will explore and find your heart as an educator and examine contributing factors to becoming more deeply connected to your profession.
The book is different! It is not exactly linear, meaning there is a natural flow to the reading, but you can dive into almost any of your favorite parts or chapters that interest you and then use the book reflectively as you deem fit.
The book is more informal! It is written as if we were in class together having a conversation. I provide references at the end of each part of the book, and as endnotes and online, so as not to disrupt the flow of your thoughts and reflections as you read.
Each part of the book ends with a final thoughts section. These summary reflections bring each part to a close and offer a brief set of resources connected to the topic. I hope these resources are helpful as you explore ideas from thought leaders and experts who understand these ideas at a much deeper level than I can ever offer.
When I reference you in this book, I am including all adults responsible for educating students in your school or in the district. I am referencing each adult working in the school system—faculty, support staff, administrators, and board members—all the adults who have chosen the education profession.
Regardless of your position or job title, you are leading students and influencing each other for good or for bad, one way or the other. Thus, when I use the phrase teacher and leader, I am referring to the three and a half million K–12 public and private school faculty members (of which more than 350,000 are in their first or second year of teaching) as well as the half-million school administrators. I consider the heartprint you and your colleagues are leaving on each other, and on the fifty-four million K–12 students you serve.2
You have most likely heard of the word footprint. One Merriam-Webster definition of footprint is “a marked effect, impression, or impact,” as in the footprint you leave on others.3
To this effect, in this book, I use a new word: heartprint.
You won’t find heartprint in Merriam-Webster, but you will find a form of the word in the book The Heart-Led Leader by Tommy Spaulding.4 Using the word, and combining it with Merriam-Webster’s footprint definition, I define your heartprint as the distinctive impression and marked impact your heart leaves on others—your students and your colleagues, as your career and your school seasons unfold.
HEART! provides insight supported by research and various experts about ideas for pursuing a deeply mindful teaching and leading school life and professional career as an educator. It is my desire to ensure the ideas are much bigger than just my personal thoughts and experiences. By experts, I include thought leaders outside of our education profession who have much to teach us about our work. For example, you may or may not know these names: Grant and Tichy, Rath and Conchie, Goleman and Collins, Brown and Kahneman, Loehr and Schwartz, Seppälä and Spaulding, Kotter and Cohen, Sanborn and Segar, Duckworth and DePree, and Abelin and Benkler. You will meet them from time to time throughout this book.
I also include reflections and wisdom from more than forty teachers and leaders in our profession. You will meet them all during your journey through HEART!
Each part of the book represents one of five unique aspects for developing your heart for our profession. The five unique parts derive from the word heart, as the title indicates: finding happiness through engagement in meaningful alliances while taking focused risks using intelligent thought and wisdom. Each part answers an essential question.
♦ Part 1: Happiness—Are you a person of passion, positive impact, and perseverance for the education profession?
♦ Part 2: Engagement—Are you an inspiring person with the day-to-day energy required to be fully engaged in your work life?
♦ Part 3: Alliances—Are you a person open to influence and shared values, able to become relationally intelligent and collaboratively interdependent with others?
♦ Part 4: Risk—Are you a person of vision-focused risks for sustainable change, with a growth and data-driven mindset for learning and life?
♦ Part 5: Thought—Are you a person with surface and deep knowledge capacity, thought, and wisdom?
I believe all five of these HEART! elements are essential to deeper connections to your work over the lifetime of your professional career. You might be strong in one element but weak in another. You might be great at taking risks but not very emotionally positive and happy (and no one may really know). You might be positively passionate and happy in your work but lack the engagement and energy to bring the best of yourself to work each day. You might be awesome at developing your own knowledge but not very adept at creating alliances and being part of an effective collaborative team (so your great thoughts and wisdom are not shared and ultimately have limited benefit to your school and its students).
Your heartprint matters! Knowing the heartprint you are leaving on others is a reflective activity. So I ask you to be mindful of the ninety-plus My Heartprint reflections that occur throughout the book.