Tripping on 'shrooms in Prague once I stopped by an art gallery window and saw it. It was an orange dog; the tiniest of canines. A stain of fluorescent orange paint in the bottom right corner of a sizable painting of some natural scenery. I remember the grass, the trees, and the people in it but in that moment all I could focus on was the strange orange dog.

I was 23, window shopping, and laughing too hard at a silly little orange dog on an otherwise green painting. Later, I was examining people's faces on the metro ride back to the Airbnb-style room I booked. Being aware I'm influenced I felt I could look into anyone's soul and know who they were. It was like a superpower that allowed me to see them for who they really were; if they were good or bad.

And in case the good people in my school district's HR department are reading this occurred 17 years ago, happened before I became a teacher, and was the last time I used psychedelics. It's just that I still remember that dang dog and wonder if my memory would be so vivid had my consciousness not been altered. For some reason, my mind decided it was significant enough to keep and maybe it uses it somehow to this day without me even realizing.

Using More Of The Brain

Steve Jobs, Richard Feynman, Jimi Hendrix, Jean-Paul Sartre, Bill Gates, John Coltrane, and The Beatles have 2 things in-common; they changed the world by being the GOATs (greatest of all time) of their respective crafts and they operated outside of the realm of conditioned and compliant thinking. Oh, and they all used psychedelics, so that would make it three things I suppose.

Here is a wild idea! Let’s arm teachers! Just give them a few hours of training and tack onto their paychecks a few hundred dollars as a “bonus” to do the job of someone else who is actually qualified to protect the public. Just think of how much money we can save!

Why not? Our teachers have a pretty easy work schedule - seven hours in a classroom a day, lots of half-days and holidays, and summer vacation to boot. What exactly DO they do for their money anyway?

I’ll tell you what they do. A little bit of everything. All...at...once...

Making sure the kids get their breakfast. Making sure they get their lunch as well. Lesson planning. Creating meaningful activities from scratch. Modifying those activities to meet the needs of all kids. Disciplining kids. Counseling kids. Assessing kids. Calling parents. Attending meetings. Breaking up fights. Directing traffic. Cleaning up messes. Bandaging cuts from recess. Handing out mints to a child with a sore throat. Holding a trash can while a child pukes. Buying pencils and paper and glue sticks and scissors and books and anything else that the school budget cannot support. Smiling all the while a child talks back and then again as his parent yells that you are picking on her baby. Staying late to tutor struggling readers. Going home with only a few hours left to spend with your own family before they all go to bed and leave you working on tomorrow’s plans until you start to fall asleep at the computer.

As parents, we are quick to protect our children. When a physical ailment pops up, like a high fever, a strange rash, or broken bone, we take the child to the doctor. These things are easy to see and we immediately react. It can be different when a child begins having random outbursts, trouble at school, becomes noncompliant, or distant. These kinds of things leave parents, as well as teachers, confused and unsure about what to do.

It may be that the child seems fine most of the time, but these behaviors pop up on occasion. Despite hearing from colleagues, friends, relatives, or even the family doctor that this is just a “stage,” your gut feeling tells you something just isn’t right.

And, frankly, we can’t afford to let it slide. Statistics from NIMH are staggering.

My son's 7th grade basketball season finished last week.  I had a great season cheering him on along with the other parents.  There's an excitement being part of the crowd recognizing our players for amazing shots or passes.  In our enthusiasm and having watched enough basketball games in our tenure, we parents also become sideline coaches and referees to make the game even more engaging!

During a game, it's not unusual for us to shout out plays or point out to the referee mistakes he called.  In addition to providing encouragement to our players, we also feel the need to provide direction to them on who's open for a pass, the positive affirmation to shoot the ball, or reminding the players to rebound the ball.  One call that brings laughter to the crowd is when two players on the same team come down from the hoop fighting for the ball.  At that moment, we are screaming to the players, "Same Team! Same Team!".  It's frustrating when two players on the same team are fighting for the same ball.  Not only is a lot of time and energy wasted, but there's also potential for an unnecessary foul or injury to take place.   

In a school, there's a similar sense of danger when two leaders on the same team, going for the same goal, end up fighting with each other.  As educational leaders, it's important for us to recognize and call out ourselves when we are doing this.  And, it's also important to know how to effectively work together for success.  For high performing teams, it's not a question whether "if" it's going to happen, but "when".  Similar to two basketball players getting caught fighting for the same ball, here are Three Ways Leaders Can Succeed on the "Same Team":

On the flight home, I sat and recalled some of the delightful interactions I’d had over the past several days with my two grandsons. One in particular stood out. As I read the youngest a story for oh, probably the 15th time, we pretended to pluck up cookies, fruits, and other goodies off the pages and pretend to eat them. Later, he sat with the book, repeating this on his own. His older brother saw this and laughed. When I reminded him that he and I did the very same thing just a few years earlier, he had no recollection. It made me think about all the other precious games and little talks we’d had that were also lost and how the ones between his little brother and me would be forgotten, too.

When do we really begin to sock things away into our long-term memory? How far back in childhood can something be remembered? I often ask this question in my child development classes. Many will be quick to answer with an event from middle or high school. But then, I ask them to sit quietly a moment and really think back. One by one, earlier and earlier memories begin to surface- most of them not particularly clear, but memories nonetheless.

For the most part, though, no one, including myself, can remember anything much before age two. Hmmm.

There are a couple fascinating theories about why we have trouble remembering anything any earlier. One involves something called “infantile amnesia.” According to the theory, it isn’t until about 18 months that we begin to develop a sense of self- the understanding that we are separate beings from anyone or anything else. In addition, we are moving from listening to speech to actually verbalizing. Before this time, we are just part of the landscape, part of the big picture. We’re merged with other people and everything that’s part of our surroundings. So, nothing that happens is specifically designated to us in particular and therefore, not stored to memory. As a side note, this theory may also help to explain why sharing is such a struggle for young toddlers. If an 18-month-old sees his environment and what’s in it as part of himself, asking him to give up a toy truck would be much like asking him to take off his arm and share that.