Setting a Good Example

I have been thinking a lot about change lately, and it has nothing to do with Barack Obama.  Our school district is undergoing major changes and the process has been instructive (not to mention discouraging and exhausting at times).  Due to economic and demographic shifts, we have just gone through the process of choosing two schools to close next year with more consolidation on the way.  By way of background, ours is an affluent district populated by many people who have achieved professional success.  A disproportionate number are lawyers, doctors, high-level managers, and business owners.  You might assume that such a group, accustomed as they are to managing change and seeing the "big picture" in their professions, would be able to navigate something like school consolidation with some degree of aplomb.  You would be mistaken.  While I believe that most of us have handled the changes pretty well, a large and very vocal group have resisted every step of the process.  There have been news articles, robocalls, editorials, lawsuits, and countless crazy rumors for months now.  Even today, weeks after the decisions have been finalized, as teachers, parents and students are working to make the transition, there is still resistance - mostly in the form of "close that school, not mine".  It has gotten to the point where the district maintains a rumor control page on its  web site. 

Did the administration handle the process perfectly?  No.  Could they have anticipated this reaction?  Probably.  Are there aspects of the new configuration that are less than perfect?  Of course.  I think, though that the most significant aspect of this has been lost in all the noise.  This situation is a great opportunity for us to teach our kids how to adapt to and manage change.  How do you take a process over which you have little control and make it work for you?  How do you look at a new situation and decide how to make the best of it?  How do you work with others to maximize benefits for everyone?  How do you choose leaders whom you can trust to make good decisions in the future?  These are just some of the questions we can be helping our kids (and ourselves) to ask and answer. 

Fifteen years from now, it will matter very little whether my fifth grader had to get on the bus at 7:45 or 8:45 am.  However, the example my husband and I set by the way we handled her transition to a new school is likely to inform how she meets the challenges posed by the unimaginable changes she will face throughout her life.