This week here at Lincoln we are celebrating Costa Rican Independence.  After navigating nearly 18 months in pandemic mode, seeing our preschool and elementary students parade around the school’s central plaza in their traditional Costa Rican clothes, carrying their lanterns (a Costa Rican tradition), it was hard not to get a little emotional.  Our Student Life team pulled out all the stops to put together a week of traditional dances, music, crafts, food, and celebration.  Our COVID restrictions don’t allow parents to participate on campus for many of these activties, so we have been live-streaming events to our community.  The energy and excitement has been palpable, and I’m very much looking forward to the festivities over the course of the week.

The activities got me thinking about the essential role that traditions, assemblies, and celebrations play in the life of a school.  These are the moments that make school truly memorable and meaningful.  My oldest two kids, now in middle school, attended an elementary school that was a full-fledged adherent to the “University Starts Now” program.  Each month, the school put on a college pep-rally.  Every class on campus had a different college “sponsor” and students all wore their college shirts to celebrate the pep-rally.  During the 5 years my kids attended, they cycled through the University of Washington, USC, Berkeley, and another half dozen college destinations.  Staff hung banners and college pennants from the second floor, and the party was on.  These were rocking celebrations that students came to adore, and it gave the school a strong college-going culture and identity.  The school, located in the heart of Santa Ana, CA, was one of the poorest in the district and in the state.  Yet my son’s best friend, who also lived close by the school in the neighborhood, had older siblings attending some of the best universities in the country.  I remarked to my wife that in the middle class neighborhood I lived in, I didn’t have any friends with siblings (or parents) who went to the Ivy League.  Simply stated, the school had built so much tradition and celebration around college, that students and families came to expect college at the conclusion of high school.  They’d been thinking about it and planning for it on a monthly basis since they started kindergarten.  

At the high school in San Francisco where I was principal, we had traditions that reinforced our aspirations to provide a truly student-centered and personalized experience to every one of our students.  Perhaps no moment better encapsulated this aspiration than our annual paper-plate awards.  Each year, our advisors finished the year with a simple ceremony.  Every student received an award.  This award was neither generic nor predictable.  Each student received an award based on their uniques contributions, personalities, challenges and triumphs.  Students might receive the “not going home until I finish” award for a student who always stayed after school until all his work was complete, or the “hot cheetos” award to the student most consistently caught trying to sneak a bag of the cheesy snacks into class.  We did the same thing amongst staff.  Those simple, hand-crafted paper plate awards are some of my most prized professional possessions.  They remind me of how I was valued for my unique contributions, and sometimes poked fun at my similarly unique quirks.  No surprise, perhaps, that our school was recognized by Stanford University as a national model for personalizing the learning experience for students.  

  School leaders and classroom teachers alike can and should thoughtfully consider how to take advantage of rituals and traditions that can reinforce shared values and help socialize newcomers into a greater awareness of what really matters on campus or in the classroom.  At Envision Education, the charter management organization where I worked while a high school principal, had a beautiful tradition they called “props.”  At the close of a meeting or even a hiring day with external candidates, we would inevitably circle up for a quick opportunity for people to express gratitude.  There was no individual requirement to say anything.  Usually, the short expressions mentioned contributions made by individuals, or perhaps a more general statement of appreciation for a shared experience or even a good meal.  Admittedly, there were a few occasions where it felt like we were perhaps going through the motions.  I wasn’t always an enthusiastic participant, especially if the discussion had been heated or difficult.  But we engaged in the ritual anyway, and I believe it really did have the impact of helping us all be more grateful – for the opportunity to work in education, to work with other committed people, and to work with young people during some of the most formative years of their lives.  

While we rightfully focus on high quality instruction, operational efficiency, and day to day excellence in our educational systems, we should never underestimate the power of traditions and rituals to shape the professional and student cultures on campus.  These moments can bring teams together and reinforce the values we hope to instill in students and staff alike in powerful ways.