You want a WHAT????

So as a leader sometimes you are asked things that you just shake your head thinking, "whaaat??" I am an educator who has been working with the tweens for 21 years.  In my time I have learned so much about life, love, and growing from students and colleagues that, if I were to be honest, I would say I may have developed a little bit of the "been there, done that" mindset.   That is a dangerous place to be mentally. It is the opposite of where I ever hoped to be or hope to find myself.  I thought of myself as a lifelong learner and open to new ideas and things. However, in an honest reflection I think I was starting to lean toward the 'fixed mindset' end of the spectrum when I want to be a the other end of the spectrum.   So how do you develop that growth mindset that you want to have but sometimes struggle to bring to the forefront? Afterall, I am an old dog, and they say you can't teach an old dog new tricks.Maybe it is just too late for me. Wait.. what?

"The elementary school down the road has a therapy dog, we need one too." says Karen for the 276th time.   For the last two years, this is only one way my counselor and other staff members have been prompting me to open up my mind to, what I thought of as "fluff" or fur, or whatever you want to call it.  There were also the articles sent to me on the benefits of a pet for children. The pictures of the neighboring therapy dog, the pictures of happy children petting an animal and the requests for ducks, chickens, pigs, rabbits and tarantulas. Don't get me wrong, I like animals, I have a couple of my own.  There was no way on God's green earth anyone was going to convince me to get another one. though  Mine are old, my kids have left the nest. Tom and I love to travel. I do not need or want another animal, not even a stuffed animal that requires batteries- no more! I am almost footloose and fancy free No amount of cajoling no cute pictures, no tears or squeals of joy at the sight of a cute furball would make me change my mind. Let's be real, it will poop, it will bark, it will shed and someone will be unhappy. There will be complaints and what if, God forbid, it bites.   I could probably continue on the "What if...yeah but..." road for a while. Suffice it to say as poor english as it may be, "ain't got time for that!"

So one day I am working with a kid who is so upset they wouldn't even speak.  No one knew what was wrong. There had been a bit of a blow up with no provocation in a classroom.  The child was simply instantly mute. After an hour of attempting to get this kid to open up and use words we were getting nowhere.  There was huffing, sighing, tears without sobs, just gentle tears rolling down very sad cheeks. There was a couple fist pounds from one hand to the other and still no words, no acknowledgement that the student understood what I was even saying.

Finally I just asked "do you have a pet?"  a head nod, yes. "What kind of a pet?"  "A dog, his name is Jack, well I used to have a dog, he was taken away." Then came the rest of the story.  We talked a little while longer.  We looked at pictures of Huskies, (Jack was a Husky) and just continued to talk about how great Jack was, how much Jack loved this kiddo.  I learned alot about this kid in those moments together.  I also learned the unending power of unconditional love, and in this child's life at some point, that came from Jack, a Husky dog.

Okay, so this kid loved a dog and the dog loved this kid back.  That's great but I still do not need to bring a dog into a school- no need for it.   Fast forward to an after school Positive Behavior meeting, "...kids love animals, let's hatch chickens and ducks again, or how about a rabbit or a goat?There is always Ronnie the pot bellied pig who is up for adoption." -- I am sure my facial expressions were giving away my thoughts.  There is no way - absolutely no way we are becoming poultry farmers.  We did that once at school, and well, nothing against chicken, I love chicken. Chic-fil-a is my favorite, I just don't want to raise them, or hatch them even.   But once again the team was in agreement some sort of school pet would be a great idea. How about a dog? My thoughts went to "I am trying to raise test scores here. Who has time to raise any animal here?  A goat would eat the kids homework! Chicks smell bad, and my nose is a super sniffer I simply can not handle the stench, none of that for me."  Then I started to wonder, who is going to help take care of this school pet? How hypoallergenic is really hypoallergenic, is that even real? Would the benefit outweigh the cost? How much money, time, energy will it take to get a therapy dog? Wait, what am I thinking?? No, No, No!!!! I don't have time for this.  What does the data say? According to research by Dominic McCamish, a therapy dog can really help a few students in their coping skills but academic increases on whole are negligible. (depending on where you get your statistics from) So there you go, no dog for me.