April 11

What a great taste of spring we’ve had this week! If we can just hang in there through one more cold weekend, I’m optimistic longer-lasting nice weather is on the way!

For some reason I’ve been off one day all week. I could have sworn it was only Thursday coming up and not Friday. I think the days are just getting past me too fast. A gentleman at Kiwanis on Thursday asked me if things were “winding down for the year.” I laughed and told him things pick up after spring break and don’t slow down one bit until after graduations and our convocation are over! With competitions, awards ceremonies, and other end-of-year activities, we hardly get a breather. And then summer brings staffing, facilities work, ordering, and starting to get ready for the next school year literally the day after students leave for the summer. I guess no rest for the wicked. (We’re not wicked—we’re just wickedly committed to working in a very dynamic, exciting field!)

Tuesday I visited our satellite Teaching Professions Academy at Marysville. They’re studying Praxis Domain 4—Professionalism—and Judy Fletcher, their teacher, asked me to come and share some of my background and what we look for in staff professionalism. This is such a great reflective exercise for me. When I graduated from college, clutching my teaching degree in my hand, I truly thought I’d quickly find a teaching job, get married and have 2.5 children (or whatever the national average was), teach for 30 years, and retire. Not one bit of that has panned out! But someone very wise once told me that we all live the life we choose in one way or another. I absolutely loved teaching, but I’ve also found satisfaction and challenge in each new step I’ve taken. And I think the "detours" along the way have taught me the most valuable lessons. As I looked at those fresh young faces so excited and eager to prepare for and start their teaching careers, my best advice to them was to work hard, gain credentials which make them as versatile as possible, and keep their options open. Who knows where they’ll end up one day!

I also had an opportunity to speak on a panel at a New Administrator’s Workshop which was part of the Ohio Career-Technical Administrator’s Conference. I was honored to be asked (I still feel like I need to be in the audience at these!) But I try to take advantage of these opportunities as often as I’m able, because I truly learn as much as I contribute. It was exciting to share the exciting news about your hard work and the transformation of OHP over the past several years, and it was also neat to hear what the other panelists had to share. We’re having such a different dialog about career-technical education than we had even five years ago. The options have expanded, the bar has been raised, and the pathways reach much further into brighter futures. We all need to be reminded once in a while how fortunate we are to be working in CTE at such an exciting time!

Compliments to our staff and our facility come from some of the most unlikely places. Sally Andrews, Health Technologies Instructor, shared with me a nice compliment to several of our staff:

Just wanted to pass along a nice compliment OHP staff received last evening. I had been working on arranging the state STNA testing for both my class here on main campus as well as the class at Marysville. I had been on the phone several times with Jennifer from D&S Diversified Technologies in Findlay which is the state’s testing site. Jennifer asked at the end of phone call #6 if everyone at OHP was as friendly as Deb Purcell, Melony Baker, Lois (I didn’t catch her last name) and me. I assured her everyone here was very friendly. She said she so appreciates working with us due to being so friendly, polite, professional, and organized. She also volunteers to schedule anything coming in from OHP because of how easy we are to deal with. I thought it was so nice of her to compliment us. In dealing with people only on the phone, I’m sure she gets lots of different types of personalities.

Even over the phone, our customer-service culture comes through. Nice job, ladies!

I get so tickled at things our students say sometimes, and often those words “out of the mouths of babes” help me to put things in perspective. I was visiting our Early Childhood Education lab earlier this week, and the pre-schoolers were on the playground. The little ones were giving the high-school program students quite a runaround! One of the high-school students stopped playing for a moment and, out of breath, told a little guy, “We need to rest for a minute. I’m old and chubby and can’t keep up with you!” I’m sure a 17 or 18 year old does feel “old and chubby” compared to the energy of a toddler. But I had to chuckle--just wait until they’re my age! I guess it’s all relative.

Regardless of age, if you’re feeling the need for a little rest this weekend, don’t feel guilty (or old)--you’ve earned it! Have a great weekend!