Positivity

Is that even a word?

Positivity?

I think it is.

Positivity.

That's the attitude I'm trying to adopt in all areas of my life.

I went to this awesome teacher inservice with about 20 of my staff members to discuss our faculty's upholding of our "norms" (things like responsibility and community and communication and trust and a positive environment) and came away feeling uplifted and connected and as if our staff has a chance. We concluded that we, at least, would do a few things, like try to handle conflict face to face, to not talk negatively about others, to end all conversations positively, etc. The next day I was faced with what I can only describe as the most intense anger directed at me (almost a palpable hatred) from another faculty member, and because I was so focused on this whole positivity thing, I think I handled it incredibly well.

I then chose to help sponsor this club our school's starting that's based on Rachel's Challenge and is all about bringing kindness and positivity to the school. There were over 100 students at our first meeting committing to upholding these ideals, too.

Then this weekend I went with about 30 StuCo kids on our annual retreat where we looked at both the positive and negative sides of ourselves, StuCo, and our school... and were able to really commit to looking at the positive sides of things and trying to change the negative. Again, a lot of committment to the same idea.

It's a bit late in the day, but today (and tomorrow, and next week, and hopefully the weeks after that), I'm celebrating the gift of positivity.

May you do so also.