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Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us, but we can’t strike them all by ourselves.
Laura Esquivel
Like Water for Chocolate
I have a confession. My first two years of teaching were brutal. I had no mentor or coach, and my schools had no discernable engaged partnerships with the community. It was not until my third year of teaching that I experienced what I would call an authentic school community. I had been teaching at a different school the prior year, and Mr. Larry Ratto was recruiting me to come to his high school. All summer I had been working as an editor for a Bay Area company and I was not interested in returning to teaching that fall. Not interested, is, frankly, an understatement. As a courtesy, though, I agreed to meet him. The grounds were impeccable and the buildings welcoming and freshly refurbished. Mr. Ratto spoke glowingly about his school.
“My teachers work together and develop curriculum that is cutting edge, Elizabeth. They participate in the most current of professional development. The parent community is dynamic, and we partner with our county office of education and local CSU campus. Why, yes, it is true the students struggle with reading and writing, but you will love this place and you will have all the support that a teacher deserves.”
It was perhaps the best sales job I had had in my life, but on visiting Sunset High School and finding the principal’s vision of his school spellbinding, I accepted the position on the spot.
The school was indeed a place where both students and staff thrived. It was a place such as Robert Bellah described in Community Properly Understood. He wrote,
“Community is not about silent consensus; it is a form of intelligent, reflective life, in which there is indeed consensus, but where the consensus can be challenged and changed—often gradually, sometimes radically—over time.”
My principal, Larry Ratto, and my department chair, Cheri Braga, raised me from the ashes of those early years of teaching. Both were my inspiration to become a teacher leader and soon thereafter, a leader of schools and school districts. From the moment I arrived at Sunset High School those many years ago to this day, I have never again questioned what it is that is my life’s work.
As a new Dean, now entering my sixth month at Channel Islands, I reflect often on my earliest years as an educator—how confused and overwhelmed I felt—and how this presents an opportunity for me to work with my colleagues and with our community to make things different and better for our children by supporting our future teachers, counselors, and school leaders in ways that foster a community that celebrates its differences and cherishes its common vision. My thanks to our educational leaders in the region who were able to come to CI last week to continue our work together. This weekend, I will be in Santa Barbara to extend our partnerships. In the months to come, I look forward to the big and small moments where we help each other to strike the matches inside and to shine brightly.
Looking forward,
Elizabeth
Elizabeth C. Orozco Reilly
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