ESP – Extraordinary Special Power

I love hanging around powerful people who know what they’re talking about (and you can have one without the other).

I love practical, powerful people who make things happen. These are not always the people with the big title and who have the big office and the secretary. Sometimes they are the secretary.

When I taught at Orchard Elementary, we all tramped through the main office every morning to check our mailboxes before heading to our classrooms. Marge, the school secretary, had flowers on her desk one day. I said, “Is it your birthday?” She said, “No. A parent sent them. And I didn’t even do anything.”

Well, of course, she had. She told me that after she had locked the office doors the night before and had headed to her car in the parking lot, she noticed one of our kindergarteners leaning up against the building. The school yard was deserted. The little girl’s mother had never picked her up.

So Marge took her back into the school, unlocked the office, looked up the mother’s phone number and called. She found out there was a miscommunication at home. Mom thought Dad was doing the picking up. Dad thought Mom was. Mom was embarrassed and raced to school to collect her little girl whom she found sitting next to Marge in the office, the two of them patiently waiting and reading a story together.

So, says Marge, “I didn’t want to leave her alone outside. But it wasn’t even an hour before her mom came. I didn’t do anything, but wasn’t that nice of her to send flowers?”

Our school support staff love our kids. They have the biggest hearts and the most loving, quiet ways of showing how much they care. They never seek the spotlight. This is a mistake. We should give them the spotlight. Because they are so often the ones who know what’s going on behind the curtain, and we can learn so much from them.

Now, I’m a teacher. I stand in front of the stage. Lights! Camera! Action! The parents know me, and the kids take notes on what I say, and we go on fieldtrips, and we drill our times tables with games, and we write plays. It’s show time!

My friend, Rod, is a behind-the-scenes guy. He drives the bus for the profoundly disabled students who go to a very special school on his route. He straps them into the wheelchair lift. He’s the first smile they see after they say goodbye to their parents. He knows their stories like they were his own children.

North Kingstown, R.I. ESPs gather to speak with Education Secretary Arne Duncan

And Steve, the custodian, offered to take Jared, the new kid having some behavior “issues”, to the gym to get some of the ants out of his pants. I peeked in a few times. He asked Jared to help him sweep with the big broom. And then they shot a couple of hoops. And then he came back to class a little more settled and feeling pretty important. Feeling like he’d found a friend.

These are proud professionals. So I want to congratulate the guy with the big office and the big title, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, for doing what no other Secretary of Education has done before him. On his listening tour of America’s schools where he has gathered groups of teachers and groups of school board members and groups of administrators, he insisted on a special gathering of Education Support Professionals to hear what they had to say.

He pulled the seats up close to him, and listened – really listened – to the lunch lady who told him about her concerns of the nutritional needs of her kids in a world of devastating school budget cuts, and the maintenance technician who was a journeyman plumber who knew what those buildings needed to prevent big repairs later on, and teacher’s aide who worked with at-risk teenagers who told the Secretary about one of her students who was on the verge of dropping out. This kid told her, “I come to school every day so you can smile at me.”

These are quiet heroes who often don’t even make a living wage. And yet they are a powerful force in the lives of so many students who depend on their caring hands and their caring hearts.

I love being around people who know how to use power. It’s why I loved the honor of just being in the room with Secretary Duncan as he listened to some of the most powerful people I know.

Ever wonder what a day without education support professionals would look like? Check out this video: