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It is not good to make decisions in the summer time. The laziness of the season contributes to a lethargy that numbs you much like tequila, slowly and seductively like a confidence man.

Such was my state of mind when I made my decision to leave my job of fifteen years to pursue ideals higher and mightier than comfort and convenience. I was convinced that I was stagnant. I knew that I had to jump out of the boat and swim for shore, and I knew that the cost of the dive might be my death, but I discounted the seriousness of the decision in my stupor. I was blinded by the prospect of personal growth and service to community.

My family encouraged the decision. I would be closer to home, they said. But I will have to work longer, I said. But you will drive less, they said. But I will work much harder, I said. But you live here… I agreed. In my application I said that I wanted the job because it is the very nature of teachers to make an impact on the community in which they live, and if the teacher lives in the community in which they teach that influence is multiplied by a power of compassionate effectiveness. A teacher that lives and walks where he or she teaches can change lives. I really believed it when I wrote it, because it was summer after all. I got the job.

The congratulations were unending. Friends were surprised that I had finally taken my own advice to be daring and to make bold uncomfortable decisions, and I noticed that none of them made similar decisions.

I was not worried. Why should I be? I was a great teacher. Everyone at my previous school said so. They said, “Don’t leave us…please.” I did anyway, anxious to show my mettle in a new field of battle. I needed to do this. I needed to grow. I needed to broaden my experiences. I needed the validation of a new medal on my breast.

In my fifteen years of teaching I had developed certain opinions about education, and I had decided that I was right, and I had decided that I needed to move into a position that would allow me to move my right opinions into right action. I wanted to become a principal and I felt that this decision was a step in that direction. It was risky to move from a job in which I excelled to a job in which I might not, but the risk was worth it. My beliefs about students were forged in a slow hot fire. I was right. I just needed…

A word. That is what I needed. A word of validation. You see, I am a person of faith, and it was this faith that almost cost me my life. I just needed a word, a promise, a whisper. I had told so many for so long that no one wanted you to know God’s will more than God that I had to act. I had to. I believed it to be the right decision. I knew that it was, but I wanted something a little more tangible than a belief. I wanted a word.

The word never came, but the first day to report did, so on the fourteenth of August I walked into Shawnee Middle School for the first time. I don’t think anyone noticed me.