There's
always
a first time
February 5, 2004
Doing anything for the first time is hard,
especially if there
is no one to tell you how and you've never closely watched
someone else do it.
A good demonstration of this was given by Pat Moran, principal
of Wheaton (Md.)
High School, which my brother and I attended.
Dr. Moran was very popular with our family for
the same reason
that he had a rough time at first with some of our neighbors. At
his first PTA
meeting, he put his foot in his mouth rather spectacularly. It
was his first
appointment as a high school principal, if we recall correctly,
and he was
stimulated by the academic challenges involved. He talked at
length of the
exciting academic prospects of the school and his hopes for the
coming year.
But he left out something important.
His predecessor had been an avid sports fan and
always talked
about the school athletic program. At the first chance for
questions, a parent
spoke up. "Dr. Moran," he said, "you haven't told us how the
teams are doing."
"I'm so glad you asked," our principal replied,
"this is the first school I've ever been at that has a Latin
Scrabble
team. Last week, our team won its match with Bethesda-Chevy
Chase High School.
I'm sure you all know what a good reputation they have, and I'm
really excited
by that."
The silence in the hall was impressive.
By the next month, someone had explained things
to Dr. Moran.
After that, the voluble Irishman realized that his excitement
about academics
would be better received if it followed a few words about the
best plays in
last week's football game and his high hopes for the coming
basketball season.
It wasn't the first time, Moran explained, that
he'd missed
something important on his first try. He'd started as principal
of an
elementary school in the rural northern end of the county. A
city boy, he
recruited help to plant a garden at the school: tomatoes, peas,
cucumbers, and
potatoes. The plantings were timed so that in September the
younger classes
could go out, water the garden, and harvest some of the crop. He
had them pick,
as appropriate, the tomatoes, the peas, and the cucumbers. But
no matter how
long he waited, he didn't see any potatoes on the potato plants.
When a supervisor from the school board visited,
Pat Moran took
him to the garden and talked about how much the younger pupils
enjoyed it. He
said that everything had done well except the potatoes. He
wondered if the
plants that had come up were just weeds. He finally pulled one
up in
frustration and learned something about potatoes. Apparently his
Irish parents
had never told him that potatoes grow underground.
On another occasion, he took the younger classes
fishing. He cut
poles, bought string and fish hooks, and they spent the morning
on the banks of
the upper Potomac River. A wonderful time was had by all,
although no one
caught any fish. After an hour or two of fishing, everyone put
down their poles
and gathered for a picnic lunch by the river. A passerby asked
if he might try
one of the poles. He took a bit of meat from a sandwich, put it
on the hook,
and pulled in a fish almost immediately. Moran had failed to
suggest that the
pupils use any bait.
Working as a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity,
my wife has
sometimes been the person a new homeowner could call to ask how
something
works, how to fix it, or whether they need to call someone to
repair it. Some
men do conform to the common image by being very reluctant to
ask for
instructions. I'm happy to say that my wife has admitted that I
may not be
quite as bad as some in this regard. But then, Pat Moran was the
principal of
my high school.
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