I am in my 34th year in education. That represents a lot of years, a lot of schools, a lot of classrooms, and countless people who have crossed my path. I have had the privilege of serving as a teacher, assistant principal, principal, and in other leadership roles along the way. Each experience has brought its own joys, challenges, relationships, and lessons that continue to shape me.
As some of you may know, I have been at a crossroads for the past few years. There have been professional transitions, personal challenges, disappointments, health challenges, and moments when I have questioned where I belong in this profession. Lately, I have been thinking about the various gigs I have had, the communities I have served, and the people who have been part of my journey. Two questions keep returning to me.
Am I missed? Did I make a difference?
A Lesson From Two Captains
I recently revisited Star Trek: Generations, the 1994 film that brought together Captain James T. Kirk and Captain Jean-Luc Picard. I have always appreciated this historic meeting between two iconic characters, but the older I get, the more their conversations resonate with me. Both men are confronting questions about family, duty, leadership, and the choices that have shaped their lives.
Kirk is struggling with life beyond the captain’s chair. He advises Picard not to allow himself to be promoted out of that role because commanding a starship is where he can truly make a difference. For Kirk, the captaincy is more than a position. It represents purpose, connection, and the opportunity to influence the lives of others.
I understand that sentiment more today than I did when I first saw the film in 1994. There is something about leading a school or teaching in a classroom that becomes part of your identity. You pour yourself into the work, invest in relationships, celebrate successes, navigate difficult moments, and try to create something meaningful together. You hope that your presence matters beyond the title on your office door or the name outside your classroom.
Eventually, the assignment ends. The school year concludes. You accept another position, move to another building, or discover that the next chapter is not unfolding as you imagined. Someone else occupies the office, leads the meetings, and welcomes the students each morning. The school continues its rhythm without you, as it should.
Distance and time gradually separate us from the communities that once occupied so much of our lives. We carry the memories of those places, even as the people and routines continue without our presence.
The Marathon We Run
Those memories resonate with me. Some days, I am visited by those memories. It may be a nostalgic run I am on or it may be an unpleasant revisit. I think about the families, students, teachers, and colleagues I have served throughout these 34 years. I remember the joys of shared accomplishments, the laughter, the celebrations, and the relationships that made the work meaningful. I also remember the difficult conversations, the disappointments, the painful departures, and the moments when I wondered whether I had done enough.
Did I help someone discover confidence they did not know they possessed? Did I create a place where a student, teacher, or family felt seen, valued, and understood? Did my leadership help someone find a sense of belonging or recognize that they mattered? I certainly hope so. The truth is that I may never know.
Education is a marathon. We run alongside people for stretches of the journey, sometimes for years and sometimes for only a brief season. We encourage one another, share the difficult miles, and celebrate the moments when someone finds the strength to keep moving. Eventually, our paths separate. We do not always run together, and we rarely get to see everyone cross the finish line.
That is one of the realities of this profession. We invest in people without always witnessing the long term results of that investment. The student who struggled in our classroom may eventually find their calling. The teacher who needed encouragement may go on to inspire generations of students. The colleague who once questioned their abilities may become the leader they never imagined they could be.
We may have played a small part in those stories without ever knowing how they unfolded. Sometimes, we simply have to rely upon faith that our efforts made a difference.
What They Never Teach You in Principal School
That reliance upon faith is something they do not teach you in principal school. They teach you about instructional leadership, school improvement, budgets, personnel, accountability, and organizational management. They prepare you to make decisions, solve problems, and lead institutions. With all of those units of study, there is so much they cannot prepare you to carry. As I write this, I feel like “What They Never Teach You in Principal School” may have to be the title of a future book.
All of the principal school classes, leadership webinars, and professional conferences do not necessarily prepare you for the emotional cost of caring deeply about a school community. They do not teach you how to process the loss of relationships when you leave a position or how to reconcile the gap between the work you hoped to accomplish and the reality you experienced. They certainly do not prepare you for the personal sacrifices that can accumulate over a career.
I have lost precious time with my family. I have experienced seasons when my nervous system felt shredded by the demands and pressures of the work. I have lost friendships, missed opportunities, and carried disappointments that have taken longer to process than I ever anticipated.
Those are real costs. They deserve to be acknowledged rather than dismissed as simply part of the gig.
When I look back across these 34 years, I cannot help wondering whether the impact I made was worth those sacrifices. That is not an easy question to ask, and I am not certain there is a simple answer. I have given so much of myself to this profession, sometimes at the expense of the very relationships and parts of my life that matter most.
I am proud of the work I have done and grateful for the people who have been part of the journey. I also recognize that making a positive difference should not require sacrificing our own humanity in the process.
Remembering Our Humanity
I love the human side of education. I love the possibilities that emerge when people connect, collaborate, and believe in one another. I have witnessed what happens when a school becomes more than a building and transforms into a community where people genuinely feel that they belong.
On the other hand, I have also experienced what happens when humanity gets lost in the machinery of the profession. The pressure to perform, the constant demands, the politics, and the expectations can gradually overshadow the very people we are supposed to serve. In our efforts to improve schools, we sometimes lose sight of the human beings doing the work.
We need more human centeredness in this gig. We need to remember that educators and school leaders are human beings with families, relationships, dreams, vulnerabilities, and lives beyond their professional responsibilities. We need to create cultures where caring for people is not viewed as something separate from achieving results, but as essential to the work itself.
I have spent much of my career advocating for belonging, mattering, and connection. Those ideas are not slogans to me. They represent what I believe schools should be for the people who learn and work within them. They also represent something that educators and leaders deserve to experience themselves.
Perhaps one of the lessons I am learning at this stage of my career is that our own humanity deserves the same care and attention that we extend to others. We cannot continue to measure dedication by how much of ourselves we are willing to sacrifice.
Beyond the Captain’s Chair
Perhaps that is why the conversation between Kirk and Picard resonates with me so deeply. Kirk understands the sense of purpose that comes from being in the captain’s chair. Picard is confronted with questions about the life he has built around his responsibilities and the possibilities he may have overlooked along the way.
Both men remind me that leadership is never simply about the position we occupy. It is also about the people we encounter, the relationships we cultivate, and the lives we influence during our time together.
At this stage of my journey, I am learning that I may never receive the answers to all my questions. I may never know how many people remember our time together or whether something I said or did made a lasting difference. Distance and time have a way of making those answers increasingly difficult to discover.
Perhaps faith is what carries us through that uncertainty. Faith that the conversations mattered. Faith that the relationships were meaningful. Faith that our efforts to create places of belonging and connection left something positive behind.
I am still figuring out what the next chapter of my professional journey will look like. I know that I want it to be rooted in purpose, connection, and the humanity that first drew me into education. I also know that I want to be more intentional about protecting the people and relationships closest to me.
After 34 years, I am beginning to understand that making a difference should never require losing ourselves in the process. Our impact matters, but so do our lives beyond the work. Both deserve to be honored.
The Questions That Remain
I think about all the people who have been part of my journey, the schools that have shaped me, and the communities I have had the privilege of serving. I carry gratitude for the joyful moments and lessons from the painful ones. I hope that somewhere along the way, I helped someone feel a little more confident, a little more hopeful, or a little more certain that they mattered.
I cannot see every finish line. I cannot reconnect with every person who once ran alongside me. I cannot know the complete story of the impact I may have made. Perhaps that is simply part of the marathon we run in education.
I have to rely upon faith that I made a difference. I have to believe that the relationships, conversations, and moments of connection meant something beyond the time we shared.
As I continue navigating this crossroads, I am learning to extend some of that same grace and humanity to myself. The next chapter matters, but so does the person who has spent 34 years trying to make a difference.
I hope the work mattered. I hope the sacrifices were not in vain. Somewhere, perhaps, I am missed.
