I will never forget one of my first tests as a young principal of a large middle school: a veteran teacher dragged a student to my main office, and I’m pretty sure I could see the steam coming out of her ears. She stood at the counter with her lips pursed declaring, “This student told me you said she could carry her backpack! And she has an attitude!”
There was a hard and fast rule in this school that students did not lug their backpacks around, and I, of course, had never allowed her to do so.
I looked across the counter at the student, who was visibly irritated, and responded to the teacher, “I’ll take this from here . . . .”
She replied, ‘You’ll take it from here?”
“Yes.”
“Ok.”
She backed away, not taking her gaze from me, as if to say, “I’m watching you!” I brought the student into my office and looked more closely at her. Something wasn’t quite right. Not her irritation at the teacher dragging her to the office or that she was likely to get in trouble. There was more, perhaps beyond the shell, a look of worry.
I sat her down and asked, “Is everything alright?”
She hesitated and said, “My mom didn’t come home last night . . . .”
I wasn’t sure at the time if I was responding the right way, but I spent the next 20 minutes calling her grandmother, other emergency contacts, and then I eventually tracked down her mother. She had been out partying late but was safe. I handed the phone to the student and told her that it was her mother. Relieved, they talked privately for a few minutes.
After hanging up the phone, I returned to the original issue. This child was known for her temper and I was prepared for an argument. “Let’s get back to why you were sent here,” I said.
She stood up, and I wasn’t sure what she was going to do next . . . .
“Mr. Gaskell, I will NEVER carry my backpack again, and whatever discipline I get, I know I deserve,” she said.
I had never seen her so amicable before. She was always ready for a fight.
Days later, the teacher who brought her to my office asked, “What did you do to her?!? She doesn’t carry her backpack anymore. How did you stop that? I know she did it to get a rise out of me!”
Remember, I was still new, and untested. The teacher wouldn’t have understood that there was a climate in this school that had to shift from “gotcha” to compassion. And she wasn’t ready for that. So I smiled and said, “Someday, I’ll tell you. Not today. But someday . . . .”
Every time I saw that child in the hall ready for trouble, I shot her a look. She would stop and hide her smile. She never forgot.
'IF . . . .'
Over a quarter century of school leadership taught me time and again the simplest and most powerful approach. Humility, compassion, patience. These are hallmarks of what I have posted in my office. It is the first stanza of a poem from the author of The Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling, who composed a poem called IF.
This poem reflects the approach that paid off with a child who was at risk, and countless other interactions educators such as me engage in every day.
School leadership is hard. On any given day, a principal acts as an anchor in a swirling storm of competing expectations, high-stakes decisions, and emotional dynamics.
I have had those days when I just wanted to put my head in my hands, or worse snap at someone who was being a real challenge. Kipling’s first stanza of If serves as a roadmap for those needing perspective when it matters most.
It’s worth a closer look:
“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you . . . .”
The challenges of district mandates, budget constraints, and angry teachers such as the one described can trigger an atmosphere of panic. When pressure mounts and blame trickles to you, being a resilient school leader means maintaining my compass. And there’s more:
“If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too . . . .”
I trusted my gut instincts, my intuition when I stopped and asked my backpack girl if there was something wrong. Aside from the more urgent matter of helping her locate her mother, I gained an outcome of less combativeness and a teacher puzzled that I got her to follow a school rule she used to flaunt.
“If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies, or, being hated, don’t give way to hating . . . .”
Parent, student and faculty partnerships are important, but high emotions can lead to heated conflicts, misinformation, or unfair criticisms leveled against you. In moments of tension—whether over grades, discipline, or policy—the temptation to snap back or engage defensively is high. It is also the wrong reaction- we should model rather than mirror these behaviors.
“And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise . . . .”
Students are the ultimate observers. They see right through artificial infallibility, jargon, and rigid authoritarianism. They need leaders who are human, approachable, and grounded.
I knew this in my heart but back then, and in a climate where I had inherited authoritarianism, I was susceptible to being viewed as weak rather than compassionate. Fortunately over time, that all changed as I modeled; I chose not to play gotcha with faculty or students.
Don’t get me wrong, there are still times when I have to hold children accountable and stand up to the union. But those occasions are further between.
Leadership is a daily practice of emotional regulation, fierce empathy, and steady resolve. By anchoring myself in the foundations of the first stanza of Kipling’s poem that is posted visibly on my office wall, I can establish the principles of patience, trust, and truth. This has transformed the unavoidable pressures of school leadership into a culture of community building.
