Caring For Ourselves

School Administrator, Feb, 1999 by George Besculides

As a superintendent, you hold the power to control your own wellness

Every year as school draws to a close, the superintendents of the southeast quadrant of Nassau County, N.Y., come together for a year-end luncheon. Before the event winds down someone invariably asks who is going to take the longest summer vacation.

Some superintendents struggle to raise their hands at two weeks. The prevailing norm seems to be for superintendents to take from one to two weeks, often broken into smaller segments of time. The one or two people who acknowledge taking a break of three weeks receive the cheers and jeers of the rest. The admission comes almost as a badge of dishonor to be the one taking the longest block of time for summer vacation.

Some years back, while attending a conference of the New York State Council of School Superintendents, I sat in on a session on wellness in the superintendency. A recently retired superintendent presented some data he had compiled about the role of the superintendent. Essentially he found that we superintendents, for the most part, fail to take very good care of ourselves and really don't know how to relax.

We apparently are good at nurturing others and giving advice to them about how to care properly for themselves, but when it comes time to apply the advice to ourselves we are too busy to do that. We fail to find the time to exercise. We fail to discipline ourselves to eat properly. We don't find adequate time to sleep given the demands of late night meetings followed by early morning commitments.

Above all, we don't take all of our vacation time because doing so would show us to be something other than the rugged, sturdy Rocks of Gibraltar we all see ourselves as having to be. The Rock of Gibraltar doesn't come in from the rain. It stands proudly through all kinds of weather conditions, repeatedly beaten by the ocean waves, yet it continues to stand unshaken.

Of course, if we pursue this image of ourselves we will experience the same fate as the Colossus of Rhodes.

Personality Influences

What are we doing wrong? I know certain personality variables drive the vast majority of us into the superintendency. When I was working on my doctoral dissertation I administered the "paragraph completion test" to all of the department chairs, principals and superintendents who were willing to participate in my study. The paragraph completion test measured six personality variables. One of the six, achievement drive, was the most significant in terms of differentiating the respective administrative roles.

People high in achievement drive tend to want to be perfectionists achieving at the highest levels in all that they do. My dissertation proved to the .01 level that principals as a group were significantly higher in their drive to achieve than were those serving as department chairs. I found that people in the superintendency as a group were significantly higher in their drive to achieve than were those working as principals. Is it any wonder that when it comes to taking vacation that so many of us hesitate to take the time accorded to us?

What should we be doing? Given that change at any age is difficult, we must come to grips with our true personalities. We should recognize that perhaps the things that drive us, while desirable for our career advancement, may not be the best medicine for our health and well being. Some 30 years ago, while still a classroom teacher, I departed for a two-week vacation with my wife in Massachusetts. We checked into a hotel in Boston in the early evening on our first day and had a leisurely dinner nearby. The next morning we rushed to walk the Freedom Trail and visit the U.S.S. Constitution in Boston Harbor. By noon of the first full day we had moved on to Salem. We visited the Customs House, the homes of some would-be witches and The House of the Seven Gables. We then jumped in our car and headed south toward Plymouth to see the famous rock. We checked into a motel before nightfall and had our second leisurely dinner.

The next morning we visited Plymouth Plantation and the site of the infamous Plymouth Rock. As we were driving along the highway, we stopped by one of the visitors centers and a helpful employee booked us a room at a nice bed and breakfast. When we arrived it was still relatively light out so we decided to go relax on one of the famous Cape Cod beaches. We spread out a blanket on the sand and my wife and I reclined to read our respective books.

Not more than a half hour went by when I jumped up and declared that I could stay here no longer. I had read long enough trying to lie on the sand. I could not linger this long in what I deemed to be inactivity. My wife, who as a teen-ager had spent countless hours on sandy beaches, tried to coax me into relaxing but to no avail. Needless to say, we packed everything away and walked the streets of Yarmouth and Hyannis. I was OK as long as I kept moving.

The next morning we were at the dock to take the first ferry boat to Nantucket. Once on the island we took an organized bus tour, spent a little time visiting shops near the ferry area and promptly boarded a ferry back to the mainland while it was still mid-afternoon. When we got back to the mainland I took my wife's hand while disembarking the ferry. As my feet hit the ground coming off of the boat, I ran to our car pulling my reluctant wife behind. We got into the car and I promptly drove back to our home in Westchester County, N.Y. Thus our scheduled two-week vacation of rest and relaxation ended after three "fun-filled" and "active" days.