What’s the funniest misunderstanding you’ve ever been part of?
I didn’t think I’d have an answer for this prompt today, but I figured out a way to twist it to fit what I’m thinking of. First, let me say that the “misunderstanding” was more an air of confusion. And as far as it being funny, I was the only one who thought it was funny. Well, more funny in retrospect.
Allow me to explain…in the couple of weeks before the last day of school at my old Catholic school job, the school community knew that I was leaving my position as the principal. I had made the announcement to the faculty during an impromptu morning meeting that I called the day after I told our School Advisory Board. I can’t remember if I sent out a school wide email to tell the parents. Or if I just let them hear it through the grapevine.
Anyway, once it was a widely known fact that I wasn’t coming back, I got a LOT of questions from them. They knew how long I had been at the school. They knew my history and how involved I was with the school and the church. They knew I did damn near everything…the newsletter, testing, clubs, mentoring, all the things. So it tickled me when a parent would take me aside to ask me questions. Because it always went something like this:
Parent: I heard this is your last year as principal. Are you going to go back to teaching?
Me: No.
Parent: Are you going to stay at school name?
Me: No.
Parent: Are you going to teach at another school?
Me: No.
Parent: What are you going to do next?
Me: I don’t know.
Seriously. That’s how the conversations always went and I was delighted. Because I knew why I was leaving. They didn’t. And I didn’t tell them why I was leaving. If they asked me specifically, I gave a super generic answer like, “Being a principal is just not for me.”
I know those parents were confused. And I secretly hoped they deduced that something shady was going on to make someone like me leave without a plan.
In the end, I didn’t care what they thought, because I was just happy to leave. You know how they say, “he laughed all the way to the bank”? I laughed all the way home on my last day, leaving behind a lot of confused parents (and teachers) and one “mentor”, all who would never hear from me again.
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