My Cedarcrest Family | MediocreMan

My Cedarcrest Family · 30 January 2021

I am proud of and love my Cedarcrest High School family, and I want them and everybody else to know it.

If you have ever worked in a high school, or maybe even just been in a high school, you might have heard that you should avoid the staffroom. Or at least avoid the people that hang out in the staffroom. After all, it is said that the staffroom is the most negative place in a school. Or maybe in any business. But in our building, the staffroom is not a place to be avoided. To be sure, there are times when the atmosphere is a bit negative, but it is not a hostile or unfriendly place. Unless of course, you are an outsider who has come to do harm to one of our own. It might be a little hostile then, but only to the invader.

I have written many times about my school and my colleagues, but I am going to say what one of my colleagues said about the people who work in our building. I have never been prouder of my colleagues than I have been during this whole pandemic remote learning time. Which is hard to say. Not because it is rarely true. Quite the contrary. I am proud of the staff at Cedarcrest High School all the time. But it is amazing what we are accomplishing during remote learning.

I do not usually put the name of our high school in my blog posts because I want people to be able to be anonymous. (Which is not really a problem anyway because I have so few real and even imaginary readers.) But I need to say that I am proud to call the staff at Cedarcrest High School my family and friends. We may not all agree on everything all the time (that would be weird), but we always have each others’ backs. And woe to that outsider who would launch an attack on our family.

Now people might think that I feel this way about my colleagues because we have spent much time together. Which is true to some extent. After all, I have known many of the people I work with for twenty years or more. But time cannot explain the camaraderie and genuine love we feel for one another. After all, most of our time at work is spent with kids not colleagues. Which brings me to why I believe we all do more than just get along.

I heard a quote from somebody bemoaning problems in a large school district. Apparently, this parent said something like, “I wish that the teachers would all just love the kids like they were their own children.” I believe that is the truth of our school. Every staff member – teacher, para-educator, administrator, custodian, cook, maintenance person, and anybody else I missed – loves those kids like they were our own. When our kids hurt, we hurt. When our kids cry, we cry. When our kids celebrate, we celebrate. The amazing thing is, we all say, “our kids” all the time. They are certainly our students, but the words come out, “our kids,” because we love them as our own.

When I look objectively at the staff at our school, I think back to when I was a youngster. My parents both grew up on farms and they would take us to one of those family farms on most weekends. The amazing thing about that was that all of us cousins were like siblings on the farm. And all of our aunts and uncles were like parents. We were one big happy family with lots of parents looking out for lots of kids who in turn looked out for each other. I see the staff at our school like that. We are a bunch of parents looking out for all of our kids who for the most part, look out for each other.

I am proud to work with the staff at Cedarcest High School. They are my colleagues. They are my friends. They are my family. Sure, we have disagreements, but we talk them out and are still family in the end. We know that we can and will upset each other from time to time, but we also know that we are there for each other come hell or high water. We are there with an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on. And of course, we are there to give kudos and high fives.

By the way, students learn lots at our high school. Surely, they learn all the different subjects that we teach. But they also learn about family. How could they not? The whole staff around them works and acts like a fully functional family. The kids see how people can disagree in a civil manner. They see how people can work together in good and bad situations. They see how people can strive together for the good of all involved. And they have surely seen how hard the school staff has worked together to educate them during a pandemic when the world is in upheaval. Our kids may or may not be getting as much content as they might during a normal school year, but they are definitely learning. And they are learning because of the concerted and coordinated efforts of our staff family.

I am proud of and love the staff at Cedarcrest High School. I am proud to call them my colleagues, my friends, and my family. We are fierce protectors of each other and our kids. We are doing all we can to make sure our kids get the most out of their time in our care. And we will continue to do so, come hell or high water or pandemic or civil unrest or… Well, you get the picture.

I must end by saying it one more time. I am proud of my colleagues and friends. I am proud of and love my Cedarcrest High School family.

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