The Match | Humility
Word: Humility
Sentence:
Humility is when your ego steps back and empathy steps in.
Passage:
I came to Chicago not knowing what to expect on a lot of levels. I was born in Mississippi, and for a long time my worldview was small without me even realizing it. Not because I did not care. It was small because it was familiar.
Chicago has a way of correcting that.
But my clearest moment of humility came when I was a first year assistant principal.
A student had stopped coming to school. So I drove to his house with a whole speech rehearsed. I was ready to lay down expectations. I was ready to be firm. I had the conversation written before I even parked.
Then the door opened.
Mattresses were spread across the floor. As I stepped forward, I had to watch my feet, holes in the hardwood showing the basement underneath. And immediately, I knew my speech did not belong in that room.
Everything in me softened.
Instead of asking, “Why aren’t you coming to school?” I heard myself say, “We miss you.”
I do not know why that came out first, but it was the truest thing I had to offer. He was a kid people liked. A kid the teachers asked about when he was gone. He mattered, even when he did not show up.
He looked at me and said, “I’m tired. I have a lot going on.”
That sentence did not feel like an excuse. It felt like the truth.
The holes in the floor boards were nothing compared to the hole that opened in my worldview. My chest felt heavy, weighted by the truth I hadn’t prepared for. I could see what I could not fix. I could not reverse years of disinvestment in this community with one home visit. I could not motivate a kid out of a reality that would exhaust any of us.
But I could decide what kind of school we were going to be when he did make it back.
I did not come into education to climb a ladder. I came into it to impact young people. I built a classroom where students felt safe and heard, where they could breathe, where they could belong. Walking away from that house, I realized something simple and heavy at the same time:
Every person, in every system, deserves to be met with care before they are met with correction.
If my previous classroom could feel like that, the entire school had to feel like that too. But the lesson does not stop at the school doors. Whether it is in our public services, our justice systems, or our places of work, the stakes for our humility have never been higher. When we lead with that quiet care, we can begin to mend the injustices we see across our society, one human moment at a time.
Your Turn:
When was the last time you changed your tone mid-moment, and what did it teach you?
If this sparked something, hit the comment button and share your thoughts. I love hearing your stories, the wins and the hard moments. There’s always something we can learn together.
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6 Comments
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6 Comments
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on January 8, 2026 at 9:58 pm
Thanks Chad! I appreciate you sharing this story!!
Early in my teaching career, I was volunteered for an extraordinary opportunity: to train educators in Kenya.
Main purpose of the trip was to help teachers pass their exams so they could earn additional certifications and receive higher pay. The training lasted a full week, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., broken into structured sessions on lesson planning, instructional design, classroom management, etc. It was also to help them learn about the exams they were going to take.
After months of preparation, I felt excited, focused and eager to contribute. I leaned into my strengths and started to build those relationships with adults that came from all over Ethiopia and Kenya. Midway through the week, we held a session designed to troubleshoot challenges teachers were facing in their classrooms. I opened the floor, expecting questions about engagement strategies or lesson pacing. Maybe about that one troubling student or the parent that was difficult. I was ready with answers.
Instead, the challenges that emerged were nothing like what I had anticipated when preparing in the states.
Teachers spoke about schools that had no food to provide students. About children arriving hungry because they hadn’t eaten at home either. About students unable to stay engaged not because the lesson, but because hunger made concentration impossible.
I tried to respond. I really did.
I offered ideas. Suggestions. And every response fell flat.Eventually, I stopped talking. I put the microphone down and sat there, listening to their challenges. Later that evening, I cried.
The tears weren’t only for the stories themselves (they were heartbreaking). The tears came because that was my first real confrontation with my own privilege. With the assumption that I had solutions without fully understanding the problem. With the realization that I had arrived ready to teach before I had learned how to listen. It taught me that sometimes the most responsible thing an educator can do is to stop speaking and start listening.
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on January 8, 2026 at 10:06 pm
Thank you for trusting this space with that story.
You came prepared to teach, and the moment demanded listening.
That’s the kind of humility that changes a person.
Putting the mic down was not giving up. It was choosing empathy over ego. I’m grateful you shared this. Powerful learning here Sam!
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on January 9, 2026 at 8:00 am
I appreciate your humility in sharing the story. So powerful and valuable for us all to lead with curiosity and empathy.
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Thank you Lani! We all have stories like this and if we can continue to show care for each other maybe this wold will make a turn in a different direction one day.
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on January 30, 2026 at 12:14 am
I have it almost every time I have a conversation with a students, especially students that have been labeled troublemakers, defiant, etc. What some of these students endure and still get up and come to school is beyond amazing and humbles me.
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I feel this. Humility shows up the moment you stop seeing “behavior” and start seeing burden. A lot of “defiance” is really survival. And the fact that they still come to school? That’s resilience we don’t name enough.
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Thanks Chad! I appreciate you sharing this story!!
Early in my teaching career, I was volunteered for an extraordinary opportunity: to train educators in Kenya.
Main purpose of the trip was to help teachers pass their exams so they could earn additional certifications and receive higher pay. The training lasted a full week, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., broken into structured sessions on lesson planning, instructional design, classroom management, etc. It was also to help them learn about the exams they were going to take.
After months of preparation, I felt excited, focused and eager to contribute. I leaned into my strengths and started to build those relationships with adults that came from all over Ethiopia and Kenya. Midway through the week, we held a session designed to troubleshoot challenges teachers were facing in their classrooms. I opened the floor, expecting questions about engagement strategies or lesson pacing. Maybe about that one troubling student or the parent that was difficult. I was ready with answers.
Instead, the challenges that emerged were nothing like what I had anticipated when preparing in the states.
Teachers spoke about schools that had no food to provide students. About children arriving hungry because they hadn’t eaten at home either. About students unable to stay engaged not because the lesson, but because hunger made concentration impossible.
I tried to respond. I really did.
I offered ideas. Suggestions. And every response fell flat.
Eventually, I stopped talking. I put the microphone down and sat there, listening to their challenges. Later that evening, I cried.
The tears weren’t only for the stories themselves (they were heartbreaking). The tears came because that was my first real confrontation with my own privilege. With the assumption that I had solutions without fully understanding the problem. With the realization that I had arrived ready to teach before I had learned how to listen. It taught me that sometimes the most responsible thing an educator can do is to stop speaking and start listening.
Thank you for trusting this space with that story.
You came prepared to teach, and the moment demanded listening.
That’s the kind of humility that changes a person.
Putting the mic down was not giving up. It was choosing empathy over ego. I’m grateful you shared this. Powerful learning here Sam!
I appreciate your humility in sharing the story. So powerful and valuable for us all to lead with curiosity and empathy.
Thank you Lani! We all have stories like this and if we can continue to show care for each other maybe this wold will make a turn in a different direction one day.
I have it almost every time I have a conversation with a students, especially students that have been labeled troublemakers, defiant, etc. What some of these students endure and still get up and come to school is beyond amazing and humbles me.
I feel this. Humility shows up the moment you stop seeing “behavior” and start seeing burden. A lot of “defiance” is really survival. And the fact that they still come to school? That’s resilience we don’t name enough.