I like to speak the truth. I bet you do too.
But I realize even I speak the truth that this act alone does not make what I say perpetually true.
For example when I say: “excellence is really important to model for students,” I really do believe that modelling excellence is vital and foundational for creating a culture of excellence. But…the statement alone does not make it true; it is through thoughtful, consistent and purposeful actions that I make the statement true. The truth lies in the actions that bring life to my sentiment.
I often reflect and wonder if sometimes if we as adults say true statements, such as work ethic is important or digital citizenship is a crucial topic for students, but do not always ourselves make it true with our own actions. Do we act these statements out everyday in front of our students? Do they intuitively know what we say and what we do align? Can they verbalize specific and numerous examples of where and when they see these truths acted out live and in front of them (as opposed to only talked about).
While our words and the specific words we use matter and help to create our school cultures and communities, it is our collective micro-actions that add up to create a congruent reality…
or one that is disjointed and inauthentic.
What truths do you say? What do you do to make them true?
A Fine Balance 
Do as I say, or say as I do? The ultimate teacher is our actions. Modeling excellence is great, but that doesn’t always translate to those you are teaching. How does your work ethic or effort translate to students? Nice blog, good read. I look forward to more.
Yes exactly that Michael. Our words are hollow if not preceded and supported by consistent action. I think children are particularly intuitive to a lack of consistency and even if they can’t verbalize it specifically they react to it. I worry sometimes in schools we invest in changing our words but don’t get to the part of changing our actions.
Appreciate your readership and taking the time to comment!
I often wonder about how social media itself has impacted trust, integrity and leadership at our local levels. Has it created more questions about authenticity as a result?
Somewhat related … this older post of mine
http://sheilaspeaking.wordpress.com/2012/06/29/trust-is-everything-but-where/
It is not the clearest post (and you don’t have to read it) :).. but your post reminded me of the conversation Glen and I had back and forth in the comments on mine. See if anything there extends your thoughts? Not sure if we came to any sweeping conclusions… but it was engaging 🙂
Hi Sheila! Love the post and the quotes in it, I wish I had read it sooner as I have been swirling about this topic a fair bit of late 🙂 (this is the process of blogging). I have been wrestling to make sense of if we are in fact authentic in education and if our actions do support our words. I hope that getting connected and being more transparent can help to bring these 2 a bit closer together.
I think that was one of my hopes too with connected learning and outreach. I saw it as a huge opportunity to build trust within school communities and districts. We will keep figuring it out…
I am left wondering post summit how to continue these conversations on in a meaningful way. There seems to be the interest and need, it is just to figure out the where and how. But I was reassured to hear and see so much interest in the topic! Baby steps!
Fantastic post, thanks. There are many embedded ideas in the language that we use daily. Ideally, we want words to accurately represents what exists, and what we mean it to exist. Also, in life there are many thing that we can aspire toward, but never obtain…even very mathematical things. Language isn’t always explicit nor specific about this gap.
Thank you for giving further depth to my thoughts. It is when our words and actions drift apart and we keep using the no relevant words that a space is created…a hollowness…I want to find and use words that sit closely beside my actions.