I know there are some people who will immediately sneer at the title of this new blog (Awesome DeKalb County Schools!), but I am not really here to focus on the people with that mindset. We each have to make our own choices about how we want to live in the world, and I know that I want to connect with the people who believe that we can make good things happen for all of the kids in this amazingly and wonderfully diverse county of ours, DeKalb County, Georgia.
Positivity is not about pretending problems don't exist. It is the practical realization that, in spite of the problems, people need a positive vision to work toward in order to create change. There is a reason that Martin Luther King used the words "I have a dream" instead of "I'm living in a nightmare" which he surely could have done. Dreams inspire people to hope, to stick around and to work harder. Nightmares frighten people and send them running to find the quickest escape. I don't want to escape from DeKalb County Schools, I want to do my part to help make them awesome. I am the mother of an awesome six year old girl named Sophia Joi who is in the first grade at Briarlake Elementary. (See, I am completely objective!) I already volunteer every other week in my daughter's classroom, help out regularly at school events, and serve on the board of my school's PTA. But I think I can do more to help spread some positivity beyond the walls of my own awesome school and to help make school a wonderful place to be for every child in DeKalb County. I really want the best for my daughter, and the more that I think about it, a great county school system is one of the best things I could ever give her...even if right now she might rather just have another new Barbie!
If we are all honest with ourselves, we can all do more to lift up the entire county and not just the parts that touch us most directly. So I am starting my new journey today, and looking forward to meeting all the others who I know are out there all over this county. Parents are a really big part of what makes a school system "awesome" and I know we can connect beyond our neighborhoods and feeder districts to support and encourage our great kids, teachers, and staff here in DeKalb.
The great management guru Peter Drucker was famous for saying "One can only build on strengths" http://thedx.druckerinstitute.com/2011/12/tackling-weakness/ . We all know there are things we would like to see changed in our school system -- and different people will have different lists. But what are the strengths that we have to build on? There are always strengths to build on for those who are willing to see them. I am committing myself to paying attention to the strengths that already exist in our DeKalb schools...and for helping to create some new ones! I hope you will do the same in your corner of the county. Please share the good things you are doing so the rest of us can learn from you, and better yet, so we can offer you support and encouragement.
As I said before, there are other sites already out there for the people who are just so mad about DeKalb County schools that they can' t see anything positive right now. That anger has a place, but it's not here. Some of us, including yours truly, are demoralized by the anger, no matter how righteous some of it might be. Some of us need to be inspired by a positive vision of the future, and it is both our right and our responsibility to do what it takes to sustain our own energy so we can help make a positive difference for all of our kids.
I have many dreams for my life and for my daughter's life, and one of those dreams is to be a part of what makes DeKalb County Schools awesome.
I'm looking forward to connecting with those of you out there who are dreaming the same dream...and want to bring the dream to life!
Sonya Tinsley-Hook
