HEART!. Timothy D. Kanold

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      Linda Ruesch was my final student teacher, and she was terrific during student teaching. I was moving on to my new job at Stevenson, and I begged her to join me in my new district when a teaching job opened up. We became friends and colleagues, as Linda and her husband played on our coed Friday night softball team too. She became not only a great teacher to her students but also a mentor to many of her colleagues. She had a disarming way of collaborating with others and bringing peace to the resolution of tough issues teachers face every day. She had a tough-minded compassion.

      For me, she became someone I trusted implicitly. She was a model of grace and humility. I also knew I could trust her with information that might be confidential at a given moment, as I would often test out an idea with her regarding the entire scope of our division’s work.

      One day, I called her into my office and asked her an important question: “I am thinking about applying to be the next superintendent of our district. Give me your honest response, do you think I would be good for the job and good for the school district?”

      What Linda did not know is that I had been stewing about this for about two weeks. That is usually the way it is for you too, right? By the time you actually talk to your spouse, colleagues, immediate boss, or even your students, you have already been rolling the issue over in your mind. But for them, it is new news.

      I knew this was the first time Linda (or anyone other than my family) was hearing this, so her quick and immediate response took me back a bit.

      Without even a second of hesitation, she said to me, “Oh, Tim, you would be perfect for that job!”

      I thought, she must really want to get rid of me! What I said out loud, however, was, “Why do you think that?” And this is when I learned a lesson from this very wise teacher.

      Linda said to me, “Because you are a compassionate man, but we are all just a little scared of you. You hold us accountable, but you generally do it with grace. That will serve you well.”

      Her response was meant to be a compliment, but I went home wondering, what was the real residue of the work life and effort I was leaving behind?

      Was it a residue of fear? Compassion? Kindness? Retribution? Grace? Focus? Clarity?

      Linda indicated that the faculty and my students knew I loved them. But they also knew I meant business, which in turn, created a small amount of compassion-based urgency to our work.

      Wholeheartedness. Love. Compassion. These pursuits allow you to delight in and enjoy others. If I choose to love you, I do not do so out of obligation or duty. When you love your students and your colleagues, the thought of them should delight you, right?

      Love and compassion give to and serve the one who is loved. The test of your heartprint for a fully formed heart (and this may take you a few years, as I am not sure I am completely there yet) is that you give love when there is no expectation in return.

      This describes a type of love that takes the most ragged students who enter your path and creates value in them—so they can build value in others—forever. This is why our teaching profession is such a daunting day-to-day challenge. You have to be on your best game every day. Our profession is not for the weakhearted.

      As we look at our students and our colleagues, do we see who they are intended to become? Do we see their potential? Do we understand and connect to their feelings? Do we really?

      Sometimes I was so worried about my own ailments that I could not see the other persons in my professional life. I could not connect the dots of how my actions affected them. The residue of the work life and effort I was leaving behind was not in my rearview mirror; it was on the road right in front of me.

      Ask a trusted colleague, “Do I bind together compassion, humility, grace, and love with an appropriate sense of toughness? Am I too soft? Am I too hard? How could I be better at demonstrating compassion?”

      I just needed to look. Like when I first met Rebecca DuFour.