Dr. Anthony Jones (Middle School Principal)

The episode you're about to listen to was released back when the Mere Christians podcast was called the Call to Mastery. Now, if you love Mere Christians, you're still going to love these older episodes because the majority of each conversation focuses on how the gospel influences the work of our guests. With that disclaimer out of the way, please enjoy the episode. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Call to Mastery. I'm Jordan Raynor. This is a podcast for Christians who want to do their most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. Each week, I host a conversation with a Christian who's pursuing world class mastery of their vocation. We talk about their path to mastery, their daily habits, and how their faith influences their work. You guys have told me time and time again that some of your favorite episodes are with guests that you've never heard of. People who haven't written a book, they aren't leading a big company. They are doing the unseen work of the church, day in, day out in communities just like yours. Today's guest, my friend, Dr. Anthony Jones, is one of those people. He's a middle school principal at Sly Middle School here in Tampa, Florida. He's an exceptional leader and educator, had a really nice job, really cushy job as a principal at another middle school in town. And largely because of his faith, because of his understanding of the gospel, he decided to transition to lead one of the roughest schools in Tampa Bay. And through God working through Anthony, the school has seen remarkable results. So Dr. Jones, as I'm now calling him, we recently sat down, we talked about how his family talks about work around the dinner table to instill a love of work and vocation in their kids, how appreciative inquiry can be used to develop teams. I found that discussion fascinating. If you don't know of appreciative inquiry, it's worth listening just for that reason alone. And then finally, we talked about why nobody wants to go to their seventh grade reunions. Spoiler alert. Middle schoolers are terrible. Or at least I was in middle school. I think you guys are going to love this episode with my friend, Dr. Anthony Jones. Anthony, thanks for being here.

I'm happy to be here.

So, first things first, you're a huge Bucs fan, and we're recording this a week after our Buccaneers won their second Super Bowl. How does it feel to be living in Title Town?

It's unbelievable. For those longtime Bucs fans, it's a torture journey. And so to get to experience, to get to experience what we have over this past season, it's incredible. It's awesome. Having a lot of fun with it.

And Tom Brady coming back for a second season.

I think that's incredible.

It's amazing.

That's exciting. Stuff like that doesn't happen to the Bucks, so we're going to enjoy doesn't.

Happen to the Bucks. My listeners are scratching their heads back. Jordan's talking about sports. I think this is the first time, this is how far I can take a conversation about sports. The Bucks won the super bowl and Tom Brady's coming back, but I'm excited for my hometown. It feels great. So, Anthony, what you and I have never really talked about your backstory in education, but I am curious. What drew you to the idea of serving in public education? Your parents were educators. What's the story? Were there?

Absolutely. It's the family business. My parents both retired from Hillsborough county public schools after 35 plus years of service. My dad was a math teacher, subject area leader. My mom taught high school social studies, a lot of advanced placement courses and just grew up around the business. Loved it. Always. I tell people my parents never said a disparaging word about the profession. Sitting at that dinner table my whole life now, some days are better than others and some co workers are better than others, leaders are better than others. But as far as them questioning their calling or their purpose and that never heard one detraction from that ever to my ears. And so when it came time, I just always enjoyed school and my parents loved their work and so I decided to join the family business. Started off as a social studies teacher, have just continued on. So yeah, it's absolutely, absolutely the family business.

I feel like that's a rare gift though, to have parents who didn't talk negatively about their work. I think it's one of the greatest gifts we can give our kids. Right. Do you think about that now that you're sitting around the dinner table with your own kids and how you talk about work and vocation?

Absolutely. Absolutely. One of the questions we always ask our kids when we're sitting around the dinner table is what did you like best about today? What was your best experience today? That's oftentimes, you know, we're oftentimes we're conditioned to ask kind of the opposite of that, you know what and sort of focus on that. But absolutely, I think that's important and I do think it's a gift too. I don't think everybody, unfortunately, I don't think everybody's testimony is they get to do something every day that they really enjoy. I Would love that for everyone. And I do have the opportunity to say that. So, you know, we want that for our kids, so I think we need to. To talk to them about that as well.

I agree. So you were a teacher before you were an administrator? Way back on episode 21 of this podcast, our mutual friend, Christy Adams. I'm not sure if you even knew Christy was on here. Christy was talking about how she never wants to make the leap from teaching to administration. Like, zero interest whatsoever. So I'm curious, why did you decide to make that leap from teaching to administration?

That's funny. I always, I always joke with teachers when they talk about that. I go, are you, you're sure you're ready to join the dark side or.

Right, right.

Ready to. I always have enjoyed, like, sort of helping with, like, larger systems, you know, so I always like the idea of how to make the larger, you know, organization run. When I was teaching at Gaither High School, early in my career, I had the opportunity to, through some master level courses. Part of it was a practicum where you kind of acted like you were an assistant principal there for several weeks as you were finishing up your master's program and just really liked it. I've always said that, you know, I liked the idea of sort of hearing what my parents talked about at that dinner table every night of what they liked in school leaders, you know, what they didn't like. And just that opportunity to implement some of that thinking has always appealed to me. And I got the opportunity at Gaither to do that and have just continued with it and loved the study of leadership and just pursuing that and, you know, went for the master's and eventually, you know, got. Just finished my, my doctorate of education back in December of last year.

Yeah, it's awesome. I want, I want to talk about that doctor saying a little bit, but first, I forgot to ask my wife, Kara, in preparation for this. But didn't you teach my wife at Gaither High School? I know I'm aging you here.

Now that I'm thinking back, I think she, I, she might have been in my class. I was definitely there when she was in, when I was an assistant principal and she was a student there for sure.

I think that was it. I think that was it. That was her first interaction with Dr. Jones.

Absolutely. It was a little bit like when I first got to Gaither, you know, I'm a young guy and had gotten this job and knew some of the kids from, from church and whatnot. So it was kind of interesting to see them kids in a different capacity, like a guy that helps out with a youth group at church, and all of a sudden he's the guy, you know, yelling at you to get into class on time. So that was an interesting dynamic.

Today you're the principal of this title one middle school here in Tampa, by the way, for those who don't know what's a Title 1 school, because I don't want to take for granted that everyone knows this term.

So title one is basically, it is associated with federal support, financial support for schools that are have a high percentage of students that are free and reduced lunch. So at our school, we're right about 96%. And based upon your percentage of free and reduced lunch and your enrollment, that factors into an equation that then equates to amount of federal dollars that, that you are given. The idea is to sort of use those dollars to create, you know, equity, maybe resources that maybe another school has or this school has additional needs that need to be met. So it allows you to purchase different supplies or add additional funding or get some instructional coaching in particular areas. So long story short, they're federal dollars that are given to schools with high percentage of students on free and reduced lunch.

Got it. And what I do know is that you left a pretty, pretty comfortable gig as a principal, another principal gig at an excellent, well funded middle school to take the job you have now. Why'd you do it? Why'd you make the leap?

Well, I was originally selected as part of a cadre of principals to enter a program at USF that eventually evolved into my doctoral program that was, you know, investing through education into principals of high need schools. And I was in a cadre of 11 principals and I was the only one that was not at a high needs school. So, yeah, I always joke that, you know, I endured all the teasing and poking and prodding that came along with being the outsider in the group. But through that program, though, began to see just the fact that, you know, one of the. Every school needs a quality leader and every school needs, you know, somebody that feels called to do it. And I had made a commitment through that program to one day serve in a high need school. And the opportunity came at sly and I pursued it. It is a completely different environment to where I was alike in some ways and different in others. But you feel like you're on the right there where the rubber meets the road as far as just helping kids be successful through their education in a place that needs a lot of love and support. And it's been good. We're. We're having a good time with it.

A couple years ago, you guys had the. I remember your. I remember your wife posted about this on Instagram. And I went back, I found the post. She posted that you guys had the largest testing gains of any school in Hillsborough county, which is pretty amazing. How did you pull that off? Like, what was the strategy for seeing such significant gains?

Well, one of the things, yeah, we were tied for the highest learning gains amongst middle schools in Hillsborough county. We were 11th in the state of Florida. One of the things you have to do is you have to be very, very intentional about, very intentional about how you schedule kids and very intentional about, you know, what the data is telling you and making sure that the right kids are with the right teacher and that they get the support that they need and instilling belief in the students. One of the things that I found was, was really planning the whole process around what's best for the student in mind. And a lot of that is just instilling a belief in them that they can do it. And there's some, and that, that sounds some technical stuff, you know, like really making sure that the work is aligned to grade level standards and making sure that you have high expectations for kids. And. But it really is in large part trying to instill a belief in the kids that they can do it. And then in that, really making sure that you're providing the quality instruction to meet that, because you can get it. You can convince a kid, hey, do what I'm telling you to do. But if you're not telling them to do good, rigorous stuff, then they're believing in you, but then you're not setting the bar high enough for them to, to accomplish the task.

I think it's a challenge for any leader, right. Whether you're leading middle schoolers or, you know, employees at a startup or a big company, instill this belief that better is possible. Right? That better is always possible, and that the path to mastery is one worthy of their, of their calling and their commitment. How do you do that? How do you, especially a middle schooler. I feel like that that's probably the most challenging case study. How do you get this kid who comes from a family who doesn't have a ton of money to believe that they can do great at school?

I would say a couple things. One, through my doctoral program at usf, I was exposed to a process of change leadership called appreciative inquiry. And what a preacher of inquiry would tell you and trains you that and it sort of challenges the traditional problem solving notions of identify a problem and then let's come up with some solutions to solve the problem. But actually you start off by talking about what's working. And then as you sort of build that strength, capacity, you then build, create these ideal visions of what it could look like. And then you leverage the strengths in order to make that ideal a possibility. Because in a lot of, a lot of high need schools, the biggest obstacle, like I said, is doubt. It's a belief that these kids can't, this community can't, these teachers can't, this principal can't. But as you begin talking about where in the organization is working, even if it's only working in 10 to 15% of the organization, that becomes the nexus of, well, we can no longer say that it can't happen because it's happening in that classroom. So why don't we go find out what's going on in that classroom? Because ideally we would want to replicate that everywhere. And so when we see it working, what do we need to do in order to replicate it all throughout the campus? And when you do that, it has a tendency to sort of stifle blame, has a tendency to stifle doubt. Because you can't say it's not happening. Because here's the evidence that in this space it absolutely is happening. With all the conditions that we know we're going on, with all the obstacles, with all the things that we would point to as quote, unquote, issues or needs, it's happening in this space. So let's go find out what's going on there and see if we can replicate it.

I love this idea. I've never heard of this concept of appreciative inquiry. Give us a case study of this. Maybe from, I don't know, maybe from coaching one of your staff, one of your assistant principals, or one of your teachers, like, what does this look like in practice?

So one of the big ways is how is how teachers not only ultimately are given like formative feedback on their practice, but ultimately how they are evaluated. Now we, the way that teachers are evaluated, we don't have a lot of like, that's a prescribed rubric that's given to us, but as far as how we leverage that to promote change, you know, you watch a teacher teach and then you, you know, research says that giving feedback to that teacher, that's timely, that's immediate. And in our case, sometimes we give it even on the spot, like in the room. Because the idea is, if I wait till after school to give you the feedback. Well, then you just have taught four more periods doing what you. What might have been a better option. We'll give the feedback right in that space in order to improve that practice before the next class period. But oftentimes, invariably, when you ask somebody, you know, tell me how you think that lesson went, 999 times out of a thousand, they're going to immediately start telling you about what's not working.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

And so you stop them right there. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I didn't ask you what went wrong. I said what went right. And invariably, like, for example, this is a very common cadence for how this goes. A teacher might have really good rapport with kids. You can just tell, like, the kids like them. But because of that, like, there may be a tendency to not push the kids for fear that they won't like you anymore and kids will run with that. Like, kids, you know, kids would love, like, if you're the teacher they like and then get you to talk about, you know, something that's on the radio or something online or get you talking about Fortnite, then that's a win for the kid. You know, we'll tell teachers, look, the kids like you. That is a strength like that. Not every teacher just walks in and has 22 kids that are like, oh, I think that person's cool. Like, sometimes that's hard to bottle. It's hard to replicate. But we'll say, how do we leverage that? So ideally, the teacher might say, well, ideally, I wish the kids would do this and this, or behave better or start class sooner or whatever it is. And we're like, look, you need to leverage that strength of that rapport that you have with kids to get more out of them. Like, actually set the bar higher. Like, it sounds counterintuitive. Like, almost be meaner to them because they like you. They're not going to stop liking you because you're holding them to a higher standard. What's going to actually end up happening is they're going to rise to the higher standard because they do. Like, you don't lower the bar thinking, if I do it, I'll lose this rapport. No, use the strength of that rapport to leverage the kids to get them to either do it at a higher level or do it longer or, you know, do it more consistently. And so using that strength, because when you focus what's on what somebody's good at for them to improve their practice, it gives them confidence because they're kind they okay, so I'm bringing this to the table. Whereas a deficit minded conversation, really, you just spend the whole time talking about what somebody can't do or isn't doing and then there you just get a lot of doubt. And sometimes it's hard for people to, it's more of a leap of faith for them to do something different as opposed to, well, I'm already strong in this area, let's see if I can use that to improve this other area.

Well, I got to imagine that's really effective in a culture where there is so much doubt. You're walking in, in the door and nobody believes that the school can succeed. Right. So yeah, it's like, all right, what are our strengths? What's working? How do we double down on it and build on it? I'm curious what your day to day looks like from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed. What is a typical day in the life of Dr. Jones?

Well, it's completely, well, I mean, my day now, as opposed to my day when I was going through the doctorate, those are, those are completely different. And I look back on those days fondly, but I'm not eager to jump back into, into that pool anytime soon.

What does the day look like today?

Today? Today? So I'm an early riser. So I get up about 5am and just take some time getting ready, doing some thinking, doing some just reading, meditating. And then I like to get, I like to get to work early. I have found that that's my best time of the day. It's also, you know, I like to think that my family is sleeping while I'm doing some work. And I appreciate that. So I like to get to school early and just kind of plan out the day. See, see what, what's my goal? Each day is to, to spend about 70% of my day instructionally, which is being in classrooms, giving feedback to students and teachers, maybe having a data chat with a, with a department or a teacher leader, really making sure that that classroom instruction is where it needs to be. That's the most important thing in a school is quality. What we say, tier one instruction, which is the instruction for everybody. So that, that's the main focus. So my goal is to spend about 70% of my day there. And so try to be, you know, the work in a school is you have to be very organized because your day is driven by bells. There's a huge supervision component. So you know, every time that bell rings, you need to be visible and be out and about and help get kids where they're going. It's a great time as the principal to be seen and visible and that's where kids see you. So you really have to be strategic about your time. Be very intentional. If you show up at a school and say, well you know what, forget the to do list. I'm just gonna do what comes, when it comes. Oh, it's gonna come. But that lack of organization is gonna keep you there till 7 o' clock at night because there's other demands of the job. So really just trying to spend that time instructionally being in classes, being with teacher leaders. Of course you run a middle school, there's going to be some chicanery or something, you know, a bunch of middle school kids, there's going to be something that pops up and then you know, again trying to be visible in between classes while also being in classrooms but then also dealing with any district details or reports or anything that have to get done. And so our day ends about 3:40. I try to leave work about usually between 4:15, 4:30, some days a little bit later, even some days a little bit earlier. Because I do think it's important to have that balance. I've always been somebody that does a pretty good job of leaving work at work and when I come home I can just sort of relax. Got about a 35 minute drive home. So that's plenty of time to decompress and then get home and hang out with my wife and the kids and try my best to not have that work carry over to home. That's always been an important balance that I've kept. And so getting there early while everybody's sleeping helps me be able to get home in the evening when everybody's awake and hanging out.

Yeah, when I had a commute I used to do the same thing. I would leave my house at 4:45, something like that. But I was home at 4 4:15pm and with the kids. How do you decompress in the car? Are you listening to something? Are you sitting in silence? I'm always curious about how people wind.

Down you for me, I'm a sports guy so I want to especially over this past month. So I was, you know, I'm a sports radio guy so I, I got the sports radio on trying to find out what's the latest on, on the bucks when they were making their run. But either that I, you know, I'll put on some, I listen to like Joy fm, hear some stuff like that. I'm not a big music connoisseur guy. So. And then sometimes I like to talk to people, call them on the way home or use that opportunity just to connect with some folks that I, that I don't normally get a chance to connect with, just to check in with them and talk.

But non work stuff?

Oh yeah, nine times out of ten. Yeah, non work. I mean, every once in a while, if you got a, you know, you'll say, so, well, I'll call this person on the way home. But oh yeah, nine days out of 10, that's just personal stuff, family stuff, or just listening to sports radio. Find out who's, you know, what's going on in the world of sports.

I. My worst days at home in the afternoons were when I took a work call on the way home. It's good to have that time to decompress. So, Anthony, when I asked you to do this, I told you I wanted to talk about how your faith as a Christ follower influences your work. So real broad question to start that conversation. How does your faith, how does the gospel specifically influence your choice of work and. Or how you do that work day in, day out?

Absolutely. I've always felt from the beginning there's a lot of overlap between what the Bible calls a Christ follower to do and be in the work of education. It's a calling. It's not. Very few people who've entered the world of education, you know, you're not gonna, you're not gonna be rich at the end of it. You're gonna, you know, you're, you're not gonna. So some of the more historic reasons why somebody gets into something, you know, it's not, it's not a profit motive. It's not a, it's a calling. And it, and it's about, I call it a ministry. It's ministering to kids, ministering to teachers. And a lot. Oftentimes that's not just, you know, reading, writing and arithmetic. It's, you know, helping them through, you know, personal situations, just, you know, praying with folks where it's appropriate and just being part of meeting their needs, helping them feel successful in their work and empowering them to see the purpose in what they do. When I made the move to my current school, they. That feeling was exponentially higher just because of many of the needs that the kids have. Just that ministry of helping people. There's not much more of a picture of the gospel. Well, then helping people that need your help. That's what I believe that the gospel did for me and did for the world. And so I think that's the connection, the correlation of really helping kids and helping teachers and helping families and meet not only their physical needs, but their emotional, their social needs, and at times, when appropriate, their spiritual needs. Like I said, we've prayed with families, prayed with parents. You get to see people where they're at. You get to see people in all certain levels of distress and need. And meeting that need is, I think it's quintessential gospel.

We over spiritualize a lot of terms in the church, one of them being ministry. Right. But if you look at, you look at how ministry is used, it really just means service. That's it.

Right.

And so it's hard to think of a profession that screams service more than education. You mentioned, you know, not a lot of money in education, but there's also like almost no status either. And I would argue that in today's day and age, when you are what your LinkedIn profile says you are, you know, status may mean even more than income. Right. So have you thought about that? Have you wrestled with that? Has that been a struggle for you or. No. Like you saw your parents as ministering in education and so that was always a no brainer for you.

I, I personally have not struggled with that and I don't mean that in any, any other way more than it's really the only thing I've ever really saw myself doing. So but as far as that tension between what an educator feels and oftentimes how the society values them, that tension's real. And that tension is something that I think every educator has wrestled with. You know, that everybody, you know, we found out over this past year that boy, it turns out that the schools and teachers, they are essential. If you've got to shut down the world for a pandemic, turns out you can't stop teaching kids. You might have to do it online or you might have to get real creative. But over this past year, I really think that, I hope that one of the legacies of this whole pandemic is that we do reevaluate that and realize that people that are in education, whether they're teachers or the instructional support staff or administrators, that they are essential, they are important and that they, and that they are valued because we are certainly called on to, to perform a lot of miracles at times. And you know, the, the status that comes with that I think is, could be elevated. And I hope that's one of the things that we look back after, you know, the long look with all this pandemic stuff. Hopefully, hopefully that helped contribute to that.

I think it will be. I've been thinking a lot about this over the last year or so. I've talked a little bit about it on the podcast. Just, it's very Kingdom esque in that we're turning upside down which vocations we deem essential and not. Like, think about who are essential workers right now. Garbage men, teachers, delivery people. Right. Like it's service. Right? It's service. It's not, not investment banking. Like, no offense to investment bankers. I love you. Right. But it's fascinating and I, I think it's a, I think it's a beautiful picture of what's to come in the kingdom of who's deemed the greatest and the least. Right. So, Anthony, I want to shift gears for a minute. We talked a little bit about you leaving this other middle school to come to this title. One school certainly didn't have to do that, but you took this principal job. It was a pretty cushy position that you, you, you left is pretty comfortable. And yet you sacrificed, you know, that relatively privileged position to go serve. And I've thought I was thinking about that in the context of, of race. You know, you and I, you and I, we did a study last year on Zoom via our church on race. And one of the questions that I walked away with from that was, you know, I recognize that as a white male, I have privilege that should be sacrificed for others that don't look like me, don't share the same background as me. But I don't know what that looks like. Like, I don't know what it looks like to sacrifice privilege on behalf of others. I'm curious if you have any thoughts on this. Right. Like, what does that look like practically for us as Christ followers?

I can certainly say when I think biblically, when I think about the idea, I believe it's Philippians where, where Paul talks about the importance of. To not look out for your own interest, but, but look to the interest of others. I tell people all the time that when, when I was at my previous school, if I just, just pulled random kids out of the cafeteria or whatever random parent came in with, with a situation, I felt nine times out of 10, when I was looking across my desk at somebody, I was, I was looking at myself. I was talking to a family where I just felt like, I know what you're going through because you kind of remind me of me. Your story is similar to mine, and that was an extremely comfortable place to be because it just eliminated some steps. But when I came to my new position at the new School, I did not have that advantage. And I'll be honest with you, I still don't in a lot of ways. So what it has forced me to do is to be a better listener. It has forced me to be more empathetic. Not because my story is any greater than anybody else's story, but I'm working with somebody still, the same goal. I'm trying to get them to the. To the finish line. We're trying to get through middle school or trying to prepare you for the future, but it's not as many shared experiences, but it's more than you'd think. And so until you actually having that opportunity to work and interact with not only students, but staff and an environment that was different, I think it is, like I said, it's made me better. It has strengthened my walk and my faith just because it has forced me to practice skills with more intentionality. You know, those skills of listening and empathy and the idea of putting others, somebody else's interest before your own. It's taken that to the next level because I'm in a. In a place that I didn't have a whole lot of. I didn't have even really professional experience as an assistant principal or as a teacher or. Or even as a principal in a school that was comprised like. Like the one I'm at now. So it has definitely stretched me and has grown me for sure.

Chris Basham, our mutual friend, my pastor. One of the things I love about Chris is his love of public educators and just anyone at any vocation, engaging and just engaging the world, not retreating. You know, he and I get so frustrated by this retreatist form of Christianity that says, well, we're all here until we die, so protect and insulate ourselves until we get to heaven. I suspect that line of thinking makes you mad, too. Can. Can you. Can you share your thoughts on this?

Sure. I mean, I. Like I said, I grew up in a home of public educators. My sister and I both went through public school and had great times, great relationships, great ministry opportunities. And I certainly, you know, when you align that to that, to a biblical worldview, I think it is important for believers to engage and have a voice and be heard and be the gospel and ministering to people. And I think that is critically important. I think that public schools should reflect the community that they're in, and that should reflect all the different types of people, and that should include, you know, Christ followers, people that confident about what they believe and want to show that love to other people. And there Are times in the church there's a tension between to what extent do I put that out there or do I, you know, stay behind the wall, for lack of a better term? And, you know, I think it's absolutely important for Christians to be part of the community, to be out there and to, to live their life and to show love and grace and conviction with everyone around them.

How have you thought about that? Like, how open you are about your faith in a, in a public school setting?

I mean, certainly you have to. There are certain parameters that we, that we operate under. You know, I have carte blanche authority as the principal of a middle school to get on the intercom and talk whenever I want. Like, I'm the only person that can do that. That doesn't mean I can talk about whatever I want to talk about, whether it's religious or if I just wanted to babble on about the bucks all day long. You know, people get tired of that too. But I think a lot of it is the walking the, the walk and taking every opportunity to be loving, to be gracious, to be a man of your word, to have your talk seasoned with salt and to make sure that you just talk the right way and, and, and operate the right way. And there are opportunities for, you know, whether it's with, with a teacher or with a staff member, you know, there are opportunities to, to talk about spiritual things when, when it's appropriate and when they, they bring it up. And, you know, times that you are ministering with a staff member who's suffered a loss or they're, you know, one of the things I realized as a, as a principal, people ask me, what's the difference, the biggest difference between an assistant principal and a principal? And one of the biggest things for me is that I found is that there are things that, and it's mainly your staff members and sometimes it's families, but with your staff members that there are things they will share with the principal that they don't share with anybody else there. And it's not because, like, you're necessarily like their buddy, but they're like deep, personal things that they feel like they have to share with you because you're the leader of the school and they're going through it, it might explain why they've got to take a month off, just part of being the boss. But as you build relationship with the folks, and in those times, there's oftentimes really good ministry to talk with folks. And like I said, sometimes you pray with them, sometimes you cry with them, you Check in on them many ways that a, that a pastor would just with a member of their church. Yeah.

And certainly good leadership opens up doors for those explicit conversations and times to pray with staff. But even if those opportunities didn't exist, we all got to remember that Jesus said love your neighbor as yourself. Period. Complete sentence. That's God honoring in and of itself. Just having conversations there season with salt. Just being somebody who keeps his or her word. Right. That is enough. God graciously gives us more than that and opportunities to minister and share him explicitly. But that is enough. That's enough. We should be content with that. I love the work you're doing, Anthony. Hey Anthony, three questions we love to wrap up every conversation with. Number one, curious. Which books that you've read at any point in time that you think back on and have really influenced you. Maybe books that you recommend or give to other people from time to time. What are those books for you?

Well, there's two that I think about. One is a book that I got from my doctoral program. It is about a preacher of inquiry and it's a preacher of inquiry, a positive approach to building cooperative capacity. And it's a very technical book. Like this is not a page turner. But the fact of so many change processes that are out there are really around that notion of problem solving. Like start from a deficit. Let's talk about like where it's broken and how do we get back to level ground as opposed to this idea of how do we go above level ground. Let's talk about where it's working and then let's even go further. Let's talk about what it can be and then talk about how we build those next steps. And then just through my travails as a, as a principal, there's a guy that's out there, he's a principal speaker, motivator named Todd Whitaker, who wrote a book about what great principles do differently. And one of his big points, and if you ever hear Todd Whitaker speak is this idea of principals need to invest in their top performing folks and that usually sometimes in leadership that seems counterintuitive. Like certainly in education for 100 years, the dichotomy was, well, if the principal's not in my room, that must mean that I'm not one of the people that they're trying to get rid of. And that does not proven to be a successful model. As principals invest in their high performing teachers, those high performers are the ones that are. Research tells us they're the ones that have the highest growth capacity and Then as other people see the principal investing their time in high performing folks, they start thinking, well, I want to be the guy that the principal comes and talks to. And so it sort of turns that dynamic on its head of everybody is sort of breathing easy because the principal is obviously only going in that room because there's a problem.

I think it's a lesson applicable for anybody. What, what's the name of that book?

What Great Principles Do Differently. I love that. By Todd Whitaker.

I love that. You guys can find Those books@jordanrayner.com bookshelf yeah, I used to tell my teams, like, here's the deal, you'll know I have a problem with you. If one, I'm being mature and actually, you know, tell you and give you constructive feedback, which hopefully was the majority of the time, or two, if I'm being passive aggressive, if you just stop hearing from me, I just stop investing you. You know, that's not a, that's not a good sign. Who would you most like to hear on this podcast talking about how the Christian faith influences their work?

Well, I'll be honest with you, in this time of not only we talked about sports being great, but politics has been so much a part of the.

Not, not great, but it's been, it's.

Been something out there. The Bucks win the super bowl is way more fun. But just, I've just really, I've really been kind of seeking and really taking interest in this whole idea of how one's faith informs their political views. And so my wife and I have found a lot of work from the and campaign and the founder of that campaign, Justin Gibney, and just a really unique way of articulating ideas around politics and faith that seem to be a little bit different than what you would normally hear. And so we've been enamored by some of their podcasts and articles, so I'd love for you to get a chance to talk to them.

I love that suggestion. Yeah, I've been politically homeless for a while now, and I'm still politically homeless. So I'm looking for a home. I think a lot of us are. So that. That would be an interesting conversation. All right, Anthony, last question. One piece of advice to leave this audience with. Some of them are educators, most of them are not. Most of them are entrepreneurs or writers or leaders or executives or marketers, whatever. What they share is a love of Jesus Christ and a desire to do great work for God's glory. What do you want to leave them with?

I would say certainly if you are a leader in that capacity. Just lead with humility. It is in the context of the school, it's about putting those kids first. It's not about me as the principal being first. And I can only speak for the education profession, but there are a lot of. In education, there's a lot of things that will. A lot of pressures, a lot of different things that will come at you that will put a strain on. Just kind of humbling, putting yourself aside and. And doing what's best for kids, because kids are kids can be sloppy work. I tell people all the time that nobody goes to their seventh grade reunion. I mean, seventh grade's hard. Seventh grade's really hard. But denying yourself, just humbly, setting yourself aside and saying, what am I going to do to make these kids be more successful? Sometimes it's fun, goofy stuff that you sort of enjoy and get the goofy around, but then sometimes it's having more patience than you have, it's having more understanding than you have. And a lot of times it's having more grace than you're willing to give out. Nobody's story is fully written at 12 years old. Nobody. And so you've got to be willing to be patient and gracious and loving through that. But I think that applies to adults as well, is just making it, you know, leadership is about letting other people putting their interest in front of yours. And that's what I would leave them with.

Does leading a middle school make you look back on yourself as a middle schooler and be like, oh, man, I was the worst. I feel like I would hate my middle school self a lot if I let a middle school.

It is funny. Like, sometimes you do see, and you're like, oh, because it's funny, gal. Because I'm getting older and middle school. The psyche of the middle school human being hasn't changed much since I was in 6th, 7th, or 8th grade. Now, there may be different bells and whistles and toys and phones, and that's a whole nother can of worms. But I tell you, it's interesting. It's a great age to work with because they're old enough to start making some of their own decisions. But even as cool as they want to act like they are, they still want the adult's approval. They still want to hear, you know, hear from you. So it's a great age to work with.

I love it. Hey, Anthony, I want to commend you and everybody listening for the important redemptive work you're doing every day. Thank you for. Thank you for just allowing the gospel to transform everything in your life, including your decisions about work. Thank you for leading your school well and serving students and parents through the ministry of excellence. And thanks for doing this. Thanks for joining me today, Anthony. Hey, if you're doing work out in the community again, you ever written a book, right? You're not famous. You're just doing the work of the church day in, day out. But yeah, you think you're world class at it or you know, somebody else who meets that criteria. Somebody who's got, you know, the 10,000 plus hours of purposeful practice of their craft. They're great at what they do and they love Jesus. Send them our way. Seriously, we would love to hear your guest recommendations. You can email us@helloordanrayner.com and we would love to hear those suggestions. Hey, if you're enjoying the podcast, you know, I'm gonna ask you to do take 10 seconds and go rate the podcast on Apple Podcasts. 5 stars, 4 stars, whatever you think is fair, so long as it's not one star. But seriously, seriously, those ratings help us immensely. Get this message. Get these podcast episodes into the ears of more listeners. Hey, thank you guys so much for listening this week. I'll see you next time.