November 14 Update

 Dear McCall Parents and Guardians,

 

I hope you are well.  I am writing to update everyone on an endeavor the McCall Faculty is working on.  This effort is to teach students about how to respect and value various aspects of each other’s identities and to think about how our actions can offend others despite our best intentions.

 

Specifically, the school is planning to set aside two blocks of time in January and March to deliver whole school instruction on the topic of Microaggression.  Dr. Derald Wing Sue of Columbia University described microaggression as:

 

"Everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership."

 

Included here is a PBS NewsHour interview with Dr. Sue if you are interested in learning more about his insights into this topic. It is important to note that although he talked about microaggression in racial terms, microaggression is related to various aspects of a person’s identity such as social class, religion, disability, gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation.

 

My personal experiences with microaggression as one of the few students of color going through a predominantly white middle and high school include the following: 1) Being asked to translate various Asian languages into English even though the only Asian language I speak is Mandarin (i.e., behavioral microaggression); 2) Being told by coaches that it is not a good idea to try out for sports because “most Asian students participate in the Math Team or Orchestra” (i.e., verbal microaggression), and 3) Seeing little to no representation of Asian people or cultures in the curricula of the courses I took (i.e., environmental microaggression).

 

I do not know for sure what were the actual motivations of the people who exhibited those microaggression because I typically endeavored to end those uncomfortable interactions as quickly as I could by nodding or saying something brief like, “Yeah, okay”.  However, I do believe their intentions were to be curious or to be helpful.  Whatever the motivations may be, the fact is the impact caused damage.  For example, the message I received from the translation example is that all Asian people and cultures are the same, and there is no need to treat me and the other Asian students as individuals.  The other effect of that behavior was to highlight I was an outsider in a predominately white community, and that I did not belong.

 

Microaggression is often compared to a paper cut.  One such incident typically does not create much harm, and the recipient can usually get over it quickly.  However, multiple paper cuts – particularly at the same spot – will hurt, infect, and the wound can cause long term damage.  One former McCall and WHS student of color reminded me that when a teacher notices an incident of microaggression in the classroom, it is likely the recipient of that microaggression has already experienced multiple other similar incidents that the adult did not see.  Therefore, the impact of that incident of microaggression is likely deeper than what the adult observed.

 

It is important for me to note that the objective of teaching students about microaggression is not to limit or censor their freedom of speech and expression.  The main objective is to teach students perspective taking, and that their behaviors may impact other people very differently than what they intended to say or do.  If anything, our goal is to encourage communication and expression even if what students do or say may offend and hurt others.  What we want to achieve is to teach students to refrain from minimizing the emotions and experiences of others and approach conflicts with curiosity instead of defensiveness when they find out their actions have hurt others.  We live in a society that is highly segregated even though our country is becoming more diverse.  It is impossible for any of us to always express ourselves in manners that do not offend another person.  We often find out we have offended or hurt others only after we have engaged in that behavior.  Our goal is to build a learning community where students and adults are in the habit of embracing curiosity and asking questions such as, “Can you help me understand why you are upset by what I said?” instead of taking a defensive posture and make statements such as, “You are being too sensitive”, “You shouldn’t feel that way”, or “You are imaging things.”  I believe taking the former approach build bridges.  Taking the latter approach perpetuates the biases that already exist within all of us and thereby makes our community more divisive.

 

Thank you,

 

James Lin

Principal

McCall Middle School 

October 17 Update

 Dear Parents and Guardians,

 

I hope everyone is well.  I would like to focus this entry on the topic of bullying and harassment.  My administrative team and I are not surprised by the fact that we are receiving increased amounts of bullying and harassment reports this school year.  This is expected since increased opportunities for students to interact with each other socially would inevitably lead to increased incidents of behaviors where students are intentionally or unintentionally hurting each other.  Students are also coming from a year where most of their social interactions occurred online where the impact of what they communicate to others and how they communicate that information is dramatically different than if they were to deliver it in person.  The McCall staff is doing what we can to teach and reteach many of the social skills students have not been using during pandemic schooling.

 

One of the most important lessons all students should learn is the idea of intent versus impact.  Intent refers to what a person thinks he or she is doing.  Impact refers to how that action was perceived by the other person.  We find aggressors in a bullying situation tend to focus their response on their intent.  For example, a student who repeatedly told racist jokes to a group of friends would likely say he was trying to spice up their conversations and was not trying to hurt anyone.  He may even say he engaged in this behavior continuously because many of those individuals in that group were laughing along.  Even if that is the case, the fact that the student of color in that group felt disrespected and humiliated still happened.  The impact of those jokes was that a hostile environment was created for that one student who was in the group and for other bystanders who heard the jokes even though they were not the intended audience.  It is also possible there were students in the group who were offended and hurt by the jokes but chose to laugh along because they did not know what else to do.  The joke teller engaged in bullying regardless of his intent.

 

Students who are targets of bullying behaviors and their caregivers often ask school officials what punishments will be assigned to the aggressor if it was determined bullying did occur.  It is important for everyone to remember that a student’s disciplinary records are part of his or her school records and that information cannot be shared with other students and families according to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).  My administrative team and I will always share information pertaining to the response plan that is created to keep the target safe and support him or her during the school day.

 

Ultimately, the goal of the District’s Bullying Prevention Plan is to maintain a safe learning environment for all and to keep bullying from reoccurring or happening in the first place.  Therefore, the school would often propose taking a restorative justice approach as part of a response plan to any bullying incident.  A restorative justice approach involves holding meetings among the aggressor, the target, and others who may be involved in the incident.  The purpose of those meetings is to help the aggressor understand the impact of his or her actions on the target and the community, take responsibilities for his or her actions, and formulate a plan so that the hurtful incidents do not reoccur.  We believe the restorative justice approach can also benefit the target since it gives him or her the ability to play an active role in the process.  The Blueprint Anchor of RULER is essentially a restorative justice approach for those of you who are familiar with it.

 

Please note that we will take the restorative justice approach only if all parties are willing participants and the parents and guardians of both the aggressor and target consent to taking this step.  Please also know that the restorative justice approach does not mean no disciplinary actions such as detentions and suspensions will be taken.  The restorative justice approach and disciplinary actions can occur concurrently even though the disciplinary actions may be invisible to the targets because of the confidentiality issue that I mentioned above.  It is important to remember that taking disciplinary actions is part of the educational process and its main purpose is to prevent further bullying behaviors from happening.

 

Lastly, I would like everyone to know that we treat all reports of bullying seriously. The best way for students, parents, and guardians to help us address bullying behaviors is to report those types of incidents immediately after it happens.  All bullying reports require investigations, so the longer time passes after an incident occurs the harder it becomes for school officials to gather information about it.  It is also very help for those who experienced bullying to keep artifacts related to those incidents.  Screen captures of online posts and messages are very helpful.

 

Thank you, and I wish everyone well.

 

James Lin

Principal

McCall Middle School

September 19 Update

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I hope you are well. I have recently been asked by parents why McCall teachers and staff have been openly sharing their pronouns when they are introducing themselves to a group of people including their students, and why McCall staff include their pronouns in their email signatures and Zoom names.  I would like to take this opportunity to explain why we are engaging in these practices.

As you may know already, the School Committee adopted the Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity policy in 2019.  The policy states that staff and students have the right to choose pronouns and names that are appropriate to their gender identities regardless of the genders or names that were assigned to them at birth.  In my opinion, this is an important step to take so that McCall and all of Winchester Public Schools can be a safe and inclusive place for all staff and students.  Sharing pronouns is part of what all of us can do to align our practices with this policy.

In our culture one often assumes people’s gender identities based on how they express themselves such as the way they dress and through their mannerisms.  When we share our pronouns and ask others to share their pronouns, we are not making assumptions about other people’s gender identities based on their appearances.  Teachers and staff also share their pronouns and invite others to share their pronouns in all situations – not just LGBTQ-specific circumstances – because we want to make sure we are not singling out certain people or communities by asking only those students and colleagues to share their gender identities.

It is important to point out that sharing pronouns is not just for the purpose of supporting our LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning) staff and students even though that is a big part of why we are engaging in this practice.  Surveys and studies consistently show LGBTQ students in WPS and across the Commonwealth and country disproportionally struggle with their mental health which ultimately impacts their school performances.  Our work to create a safer school for students of all gender identities – including the engaging in the practice of sharing pronouns – is to benefit all students.  Creating a school culture where we normalize gender identity expression signals to all staff and students that people do not have to hide or be ashamed of their gender identities whether they are consistent with the ones they were assigned at birth or not.  These efforts also communicate to everyone that no one gender identity is superior to another and that no one identity is “more normal” than another.  Ultimately, we want all staff and students to understand that there is a place for everybody, and McCall is truly a place for ALL.

Lastly, I would like to make sure everybody knows that we do not require anyone to share their pronouns if people do not feel comfortable doing so.   We only invite staff and students to take this step.  Some folks may choose not to share their pronouns because they have not decided what is the appropriate pronoun for themselves or that they are uncertain why they are being invited to do so.  I understand some of our students are confused by why this practice is taking place at McCall.  This is particularly the case for our sixth graders given that many of them have not been exposed to this practice at their elementary schools.  I will be working with my staff to make sure students understand the rationale behind sharing pronouns, and that they all have the option to not share pronouns if they are not comfortable doing so.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post.

James Lin

Principal

McCall Middle School 

September 12 Update

 Dear McCall Parents and Guardians,

 

I am probably dating myself by letting you know that some of my favorite movies are the 80’s teen comedies by John Hughes such as Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Breakfast Club.  However, the movie about a teenager’s life I found to be the most compelling is Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade that came out in 2018.  The movie depicts the last few days of a young woman Kayla’s 8^th grade year.  There are a lot of scenes that showed how she tried so hard to navigate through some very difficult social situations.  Kayla did so awkwardly, and despite her best efforts and intentions the results of her attempts to be accepted are cringe-worthy.  You may have witnessed some of these situations involving your own middle-schoolers, and your hearts may have broken for them as these situations play out in front of you.

 

Although he is not the focus on the movie, the character that resonated with me the most is Mark, Kayla’s father, who was raising his daughter on his own.  The movie showed him doing his best to connect with Kayla while dealing with parenting challenges such as figuring out how to manage his daughter’s social media usage.  Mark did plenty of things to embarrass his daughter (and himself) and at times alienated her from him.   

 

Despite his cluelessness, I found Mark to be a very good father.  He continued to be a presence in Kayla’s life throughout the movie and persisted in his effort to connect with her even though Kayla pushed him away repeatedly.

 

You are going to be find your middle school student share less and less with you about their days at school as they grow older.  This is normal.  It is also normal to find your child who used to tell you everything respond with short phrases or even one syllable words when you ask them how they are doing and what happened at school.  I have found successful parents will continue to ask their middle school children about how they are doing and consistently find opportunities to ask those questions even though their children would not sharing much or respond with very little details.  The signal you are sending your middle school children by doing so is that you care and they can always count on your presence.  There will come a day when they need you, and you will be there when that time arrives.

 

I also want everyone to know that McCall staff are always observing your students’ academic and social emotional progress.  You can count on us contacting you if we see evidence that your children are not doing well.  No news typically means good news, but if you are unsure whether your parental instincts are matching up with what the teachers and staff are seeing in school, please make sure you reach out to us right away.  The appropriate people to connect with if you have academic concerns are the teachers themselves.  If you have across the board concerns about your child’s academic progress and/or social emotional well-being, the people to contact are your child’s guidance counselor or the Team Leader.  Attached here is a document that lists who those people are.  This information is also posted on the Resources page of our website.

 

Thank you, and I hope you find this information helpful.

 

James Lin

Principal

McCall Middle School

September 5 Update

Dear McCall Parents and Guardians,


Welcome to the 21-22 school year. From what I could see during the first two days of school, I believe the year started out pretty well. It goes without saying that last school year was very difficult for both staff and students, and a lot of that had to do with the COVID mitigation guidelines we put in place took away much of what is enjoyable about coming to school – most notably the ability for staff and students to be able to interact with each other in meaningful ways. I know many of McCall faculty members are excited about returning to many of the pre-pandemic practices, and they are elated that they can get back to being the educators they want to be for their students.


I would like to share with you this commentary posted on the WBUR website titled “The Pandemic Is Still Here. How Can We Help Kids Return to School”. The authors Achana Basu and Karesten Koenen, both academicians from Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, provided some advice on how to help students adjust to their return to full in-person learning after a challenging 20-21 school year. I found the most compelling advice the authors offered us in the article is to emphasize the value of flexibility and to “avoid unrealistic positivity in factor of realistic assurance.”  The entire article can he found here.  

While the district leaders and I are working to get schooling back to what it was prior to the pandemic, it is still important for all of us to remember that COVID is still out there. We do not have to be paralyzed by it, but we must be vigilant about following science-based mitigation guidelines. Reminding our students and each other to wear masks, wash hands frequently, practice maximum distancing, and quarantine when asked by the Health Department are critical to keeping our school running safely. I also ask everyone to be patient with us as my staff and I work to figure out how to implement health and safety measures while allowing everyone in the school to enjoy teaching and learning the way they were meant to be done.


Lastly, I would like to remind all parents and caregivers that it is natural for students to experience back to school emotions that are both pleasant and unpleasant emotions at high intensity levels.  This is especially the case if the students have not been in the building for over a year.  While my staff and I would see the pleasant emotions such as excitement and elation during the school day, you will likely see the unpleasant emotions such as anxiousness and nervousness at home. If you do see your children being upset about the first two days of school, it may be helpful to remember that going to school after two months of not doing so is tiring for everyone. The behaviors that were expressed by your children may be their inabilities to regulate their emotions due to physical exhaustion as opposed to the actual problems they were telling you about. I found many of the challenges students have melt downs about during the first few days of school (e.g., trouble opening lockers, not finding their classrooms, not seeing friends at the time they are expecting to see them) will resolve themselves after few more days of school. I have also found the most effective ways for parents and caregivers to help their students during those situations are to listen without reacting and to give the students what they need to “refuel their tanks” (e.g., give them food and get them to bed at a reasonable hour).  My staff and I will be happy to help if the problems persist and your student continue to express the same difficulties after a week or so of school.



I, for one, had a great first two days of school. I hope you did as well and the four day weekend helped you recharge.  Here’s to another good 175 plus days of school!




James Lin

Principal

McCall Middle School

Thank you to the McCall Community

 Dear McCall Parents and Guardians,

 

I hope you are well.  The unprecedented 20-21 school year is a wrap.  Hooray!  A public school is by nature an organization that is not easy to change.  The main reason is because we are working with the well-being of children, so any sudden modifications to the system that are not well-thought out or well implemented can cause profound negative impact on kids and their families.  Running a school is akin to driving a semi truck as opposed to a sports car.  Navigating through this school year is like driving that semi truck through a narrow mountain pass.  I am extremely proud of how all of us – teachers, staff, parents, and caregivers – all came together to help us all make it through this journey.  I am particularly proud of how well our students – especially our 8^th graders – responded to the changes and challenges that were thrown in their way throughout the year.  It was by no means a perfect school year, but I believe it was a successful one by all standards of measurement.

 

As proud as I am of what the McCall community was able to accomplish this year, I am also mindful of the fact that we still have a lot of work to do.  As the pandemic exposed many of the vulnerabilities and flaws of our society, it did the same for McCall as well.  Even though I like to think McCall is a school for ALL, this school year showed us that we still have mountains to climb in terms of promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion.  These topics will be on my mind as my team and I prepare for the 21-22 school year.

 

I would like to end this message by bidding farewell to our colleagues and friends who retired during this school year.  Their contributions to McCall have been immense, and they will be sorely missed.  Our retirees are:

 

Ms. Pam DiMatteo, Speech and Language Pathologist – 15 years of service.

Ms. Phyllis Greenspan – Clinical Social Worker – 19 years of service.

Ms. Bonnie Hourican – Administrative Assistant – 14 years of service.

Sgt. Dan Perenick – School Resource Officer – 14 years of service.

Ms. Jane Sheehan – Math Teacher – 12 years of service

Mr. Ken Tully – Social Studies Teacher – 46 years of service.

 

I would be remiss if I do not recognize the work Ms. Beth Lepore who will be leaving McCall as her youngest child moves on to WHS.  Beth was the MPA co-president last year, and she helmed the organization on her own this year.  Being a PFA president is not an easy job during a typical year, so the work Beth has done navigating the organization through two unprecedented school years is especially impressive.  She had no playbooks to follow and had to essentially reinvent how we do fund raisers, 8^th grade end of the year events, and staff appreciation events among all the other things the MPA does for the McCall community.  I will miss Beth as a partner, an advisor, and a friend.

 

I thank all of you for the support you have given us this year, and I wish all of you a great summer vacation.  Here’s to a brighter 21-22 school year!

 

 

James Lin

Principal

McCall Middle School

March 28 Update

Dear Parents and Guardians,

 

I am writing to let you know a little bit about what we discussed during this Thursday afternoon’s student meeting about the Asian American hate incidents that have been occurring across the country.  Thank you to those who encouraged your students to join us.  We had about 25 students who joined the group and about twenty staff who came to facilitate the session.

 

I decided not to focus on the specific events that happened across the country given that some students may not have been aware of or are overwhelmed by the horrific events such as the mass shooting that occurred in Atlanta two weeks ago.  Instead, I felt it would be more appropriate to talk about the microaggression that Asian Americans and people from different marginalized groups often experience in their everyday lives.  These events are subtle and sometimes delivered with good intentions.  However, they are just as damaging to the recipients of these behaviors as physical assaults, and if these behaviors go unchecked, they can lead to more overt and violent aggression such as physical attacks.

 

At the start of the session, I showed the students the following video called Lunch Box Moments.  I believe the testimonies of the folks in the video demonstrated very well how hurtful comments disguised as jokes targeting something that is deeply connected to one’s identity (e.g., the food they eat) can cause an impact on that person’s well-being. 

 

 

 

During our meeting, the students shared that they thought the folks in the video experienced feelings related to shame, embarrassment, awkwardness, worthlessness, and fear during their Lunch Box Moments.  These are the feelings that can lead the aggressors to believe and internalize that it is acceptable to exclude or marginalize other people who are different than they are.  These are also the feelings that can lead the targets to believe they do not deserve to be treated equitably, and what they value about their own cultures and other aspects of themselves are shameful and should stay hidden.

 

When I think about our anti-racism and anti-bullying work at McCall, I do believe we do a pretty good job of getting students to understand that overtly racist, homophobic, sexist, and biased behaviors are unacceptable.  What we need to spend more time and effort on is helping everyone within the community understand microaggression and what it really is – abusive behaviors.  We have to do a better job of helping everyone to understand there is no place for microaggression in our community, and we have to teach everyone to respond appropriately when they encounter microaggression in the moment.  Given that microaggression by definition are behaviors that are subtle and are often delivered as compliments (e.g., “You are so handsome for a dark skinned boy”or “I can't believe girls can also be good at this sport”), they are not easily detectable by adults who are monitoring the interactions that are happening among students – especially when they are in large group settings.  Therefore, it is equally important we all help our students understand the importance of reporting these incidents to proper authorities if they witness them as bystanders or experience them as targets.

 

Last Tuesday’s meeting ended with someone posing the question, “If we experience microaggression, how do we confront it?”  I provided the following document called Racism Interruptions to all the students and the adults at the session as part of my response to this query.  I am attaching it here for your reference.  This document includes many types of responses people can say when they are facing overt racist verbal abuses or comments that are more subtle and take the form of compliments or part of everyday banter.  I hope you and your students will find it useful the next time you encounter your own Lunch Box Moment.

 

Thank you,

 

James Lin

Principal

McCall Middle School