In the Land of the Texas Educonference

Every so often, for the past oh I'd say 20 years or so, I find myself as I am now -- in a nice hotel, wearing a tag with my name and affiliation on it, along with a pretty logo of whatever organization is throwing the shindig in question. This time, it's the PSP Network Summer Institute, and I have a nifty green ribbon at the bottom of my name tag, which reads "STAFF" in embossed gold lettering, because I am one of the people running the conference.

This afternoon, during a break in the action, I was watching some of our PSP's (Professional Service Providers), most of whom are quite, um, "seasoned," I guess is a nice word for it. They have been campus principals or central office-level administrators, and are now coming out of retirement to offer their service to campuses and districts who are struggling to stay afloat. I watch their reunions, as they hug and slap backs and give hearty handshakes and guffaws back and forth in front of the Starbucks coffee stand the wait staff has put out for them, the cups all stacked neatly in upside-down towers. For a moment, their friendship makes me sad, as I think back to the conferences in New York, and elsewhere, before I made the move out here to Texas, and how I'd have similar back-slapping reunions with people in carpeted hotel lobbies, all of us wearing our names on lanyards.

I'm slowly making my name here in Texas, but I'm still very much an unknown commodity. I worked in the New York school system, as a teacher, then a school leader, then a school change agent for enough years to get my name out there to some pretty important mucky-mucks. I had a level of respect in that world that I haven't quite attained here yet. As Willie Loman said in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, "It's important to be well liked." I think I've achieved that much here in Texas, and probably on more of a statewide level than I ever did in New York. But being "well liked" is not good enough. I'm working toward something deeper, and it may just take some more time to attain it here, on this relatively new stage.