Be the Adult

I will never forget the moment I first learned to “Be the Adult.” It was in my first job as an administrator after many years of teaching. I bested a kid in a passionate argument and sent him back to class while my boss and mentor looked on. I glowed with pride until he quietly deflated me with the five words that changed the rest of my career: “Remember, Lance: You’re the adult.” That phrase floods my mind with stories, the stories in this book. Some are heroic, some are embarrassing, but all of them can help you learn what I learned. I had to be the adult in a band room facing hostile kids, and facing students who played a passage so beautifully it brought tears to my eyes. I had to be the adult on 110-degree Tucson, Arizona, football fields, in band buses far from home — and facing concerned superintendents and furious teachers as an administrator. Schools can and do change students for the better, but only on one condition: Someone has to Be the Adult.