It’s been challenging to write this week.

To stay committed to my rhythm of sharing every couple of weeks when everything around us feels so chaotic, so disruptive, so divisive, and, at times, so deeply unsettling.

Between headlines of violence, community unrest, political tension, and the ongoing weight educators carry inside schools every day, I’ve felt a familiar dull ache in the pit of my stomach. Not panic. Not fear exactly. More like a quiet heaviness. A sense that things feels louder, faster, and less predictable than it did not that long ago.

Dammit. I hate feeling this way.

And I know I’m not alone.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the two things we always control: our attitude and our actions. That reflection came from the internal reality many of us are living: fatigue, overwhelm, and the constant pressure to hold things together for others.

This time, though, my thinking feels slightly different. This time, I’ve been reflecting on what our external world is asking of us as educators and leaders.

Our students are watching the same news.
Our staff are carrying the same uncertainty.
Our communities are processing the same grief, anger, and confusion.

Whether we name it out loud or not, the emotional climate outside our schools inevitably finds its way inside them.

What I’m struggling with most is not just the chaos itself, but the growing sense that we are normalizing harm, especially toward those who have historically been denied dignity, and calling it leadership, policy, or progress.

That’s the part that feels hardest to sit with.

Not just that terrible things are happening, but that they are happening in ways that strip people of their humanity. That fear, exclusion, and dehumanization are increasingly treated as acceptable, necessary, or inevitable. That entire groups of people, often people of color and those already marginalized, continue to carry the greatest burden of decisions they did not make and systems they did not design.

And as an educator, as a leader, as a human being, I don’t know how to make sense of that without naming it for what it is: a moral failure.

Which brings me to a simple but powerful idea I’ve been sitting with:
Calm is not passive. Calm is a choice. And right now, calm is an act of moral leadership.

Choosing calm doesn’t mean ignoring what’s happening. It doesn’t mean minimizing pain, injustice, or fear. It doesn’t mean pretending everything is fine.

It means deciding, on purpose, how we will show up in the middle of it.

It means pausing before reacting.

It means noticing our own emotional state before walking into a classroom, a meeting, or a hard conversation.

It means responding in ways that are aligned with our values, not just our stress.

In moments of collective anxiety, regulated adults become anchors. Not because we have all the answers. But because our presence signals safety, steadiness, and care in a world that feels increasingly unstable.

For me, choosing calm looks like a few small but intentional practices:

Taking a few slow breaths before responding to difficult news or emails.

Naming what I’m feeling instead of suppressing it.

Asking myself, “What does this moment need from me, reaction or leadership?”

But I’m realizing more and more that calm isn’t just personal. It’s relational. It’s cultural. It’s contagious.

A calm teacher creates space for students to regulate.

A calm administrator sets the tone for an entire building.

A calm leadership team models what it looks like to navigate uncertainty without spreading it.

A calm adult creates the conditions for civil discourse.

In practical terms, this might look like:

Creating space in staff meetings to acknowledge emotional load, not just operational updates.

Giving students language to name what they’re feeling and reassurance that their reactions are valid.

Slowing down decisions when emotions are running high.

Leading with curiosity before judgment.

Remembering that connection often matters more than correction.

In times like these, calm becomes more than a coping strategy. It becomes a form of ethical resistance to chaos.
Not loud resistance. Not performative resistance. But quiet, steady, human resistance.

The kind that says: We will not let fear define how we treat one another.

The kind that says: We will not normalize harm, even when it becomes common.

The kind that says: We will lead with dignity in a world that too often forgets what dignity means.

We don’t control the headlines. We don’t control the systems. We don’t control everything happening around us. But we do control how we show up inside our classrooms, our offices, and our communities.

And right now, choosing calm is not just a personal practice.

It may be one of the most meaningful moral decisions we make as leaders.

Be Great,

Dwight