Leave Your Ego at the Schoolhouse Door

"The ego is the prison you have built around yourself, and now it holds you captive within its walls" – Deepak Chopra

I am embarking on a journey with the writing of this article, one of personal discovery and awareness that I want to share with other educators. I have been a teacher/administrator for over forty years, which does not give me legitimacy; it just means I have been long suffering, both personally and professionally.

A few years ago, I began taking yoga classes with my wife, who has become my personal life coach, and the first thing the instructor advised us was to leave our ego at the door. Wow, I thought, what a wonderful concept. I wasn’t sure of all the intricacies of that statement, but it felt right. Don’t compare yourself to anyone else – what you do in here is OK.

That day was transformative for me as it made me think back to my years in the classroom and as an educational administrator. How would schools be different if I had left my ego at the schoolhouse door and if my teachers had done the same? Would I have been more effective? Would they?

Eckhart Tolle, the author of A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose believes that the ego is responsible for most of the dysfunction in the world and that becoming aware of one’s ego is the first step in dissolving the illusion that it creates.  He made me examine my own behavior and how my sense of “I” has gotten in my way of being a successful leader of others. It made me reexamine many of the leadership and teaching improvement advice I had received over the years and filter it through the perspective of one’s ego.
My conclusion, like Tolle’s, is that the ego is the biggest impediment to school change for the better. We now have a wealth of research-based strategies that work; that have been demonstrated to improve achievement when implemented with fidelity. So why are schools stilled mired in the past? Why is it so difficult to, as Wilson-Phillips sang, “To break free of those chains?”

The ego is very comfortable with the past and resists change. Some say this is just human nature, but I argue that there are many individuals who embrace change; feel comfortable with the unknown and the mysteries that it holds. Are these people anomalies; rebels who miraculously have stepped outside of their own human bondage? Perhaps, but I sense that we are all capable of these quantum leaps.

I am going to attempt to look at the literature and use my own experience as a way to bring ego awareness to others. If we can become aware of the signs, the feelings that foreshadow the ego’s intrusion into our actions, we can be the change we want to see in the world. It will also help me become the person I was meant to be.