"The End"

Nearly 260 Weekly’s have been written and published during my tenure as Superintendent of Schools for Anson County.  I didn’t really believe it until I went back and looked into the files.  

Over the years, I have attempted to convey much more than my Thoughts, Comments, and Observations about education.  Woven into the narrative has been the architecture of our vision, mission, guiding beliefs, organizational norms, successes, shortcomings, celebrations, intentions, and motivations to be a part of this great work.

My best hopes for the Board of Education, administration, staff, students, parents, and our community is to continue with determination, conviction, and commitment to “All means all”.  The hope underpinning those three powerful words must be realized now and in the future as the value proposition of, for, and by an education is now more than ever critical to access, opportunity, choice and participation in each of life’s roles.

There has never been a time more important than now to ensure that information, knowledge and wisdom are freely exchanged.  Akin to air that is freely inhaled and exhaled, information, knowledge and wisdom must be ubiquitous.  As many of you know I have (tongue and cheek) accused President Obama’s staff of plagiarizing our theory of action – hope comes from building trust through transparency.  And so it is, transparency of thought, intent, and action always precedes trust.

Hope remains empty or incomplete without trust through transparency. Intentions are often debated, judged, and the fuel for conjecture as well as speculation.  One sure way of reducing these tendencies is the degree to which each of us individually as well as corporately exercise integrity.  

I recall vividly Stephen L. Carter’s 1996 book Integrity.  Carter defines integrity with three required steps. They are:

1.   The act of discerning what is right and what is wrong; your personal views are well thought out in advance;

2.   Acting on what you have discerned, even at personal cost; and

3.   Saying openly that you are acting on your understanding of right from wrong.

Seems simple enough, right?

Carter cautions that doing what is right will often be painful. The test of integrity comes only when doing the right entails a significant cost.  That cost more often or not is thinking differently before behaving differently.  Moreover, that cost will include letting go; an abandonment of past practices or programs to learn new, different not just accepting and doing what has always been or what can easily be learned to do.

“All means All” is about discerning what is right, acting on what is right, and saying opening that you are acting on what is right.  Imagine an equilateral triangle (remember - all three sides of equal length and therefore their angles are equal), Discerning, Action and Saying are equal.  If a side is not the same you don’t have an equilateral triangle.  

You get the point!  

Discerning, Action, and Saying work together and must therefore remain equal.

The “All means All” words are the “right” words.  The challenge is not saying them but in “acting” them.  For too many years educators as well as policy makers have espoused “all” with respect to children, standards, assessments, and etc.  Argumentatively, the absence of discerning and acting has eroded the integrity of the word “all”.  Simply and candidly put, “actions speak louder than words”.

It remains a best hope that the work accomplished to date encourages those that may have a “disconnect” with saying what is right and doing what is right.  It is equally a best hope that time, intentional time continue with reviewing and reflecting practice and programs – central to continuous improvement but essential to discerning what is right.  

I would be remiss if I didn’t revisit the three “C’s” (courage, conviction, and commitment) and their role in being a person as well as an organization of integrity.

“All means All” and the three “C’s”

“All” – courage:  It takes courage to include all (albeit each students, parent, staff, etc.) in our thinking because it takes time to consider the implications, impacts, effects and outcomes of, for, and by decisions.

“Means” – conviction:  It takes conviction to anchor the value, import, and significance of each person irrespective of age, race, gender, handicapping condition, faith or social economic status.

“All” – commitment:  It takes individual and organizationally commitment to ensure integrity is not compromised.

Thus, I close my last Weekly! – for now that is.

I sincerely wish you the best of success as you continue the journey of “All means All”.  

Thank you for the privilege and honor to serve you.