Posts Tagged ‘Charleston SC’

Balance. MiShwna Moore seems to have little of it in her life. Why? Because Charleston County School District (CCSD) officials have crowned the superior Principal Moore the heroine who will save an additional struggling school for them (With only a stipend and not double the salary which IMHO she should receive.). And she accepted the crown. So have many of us in our lives. There are lessons here.

As reported in a 2003 Post and Courier article, Principal Moore is a professional who works hard at her job, creates success and is recognized for that success. Her almost miraculous turn-around of Sanders-Clyde Elementary School prompted the CCSD to do what many in other businesses frequently do; give a high achiever more to do for less money. The business maxim seems to be that if you have one successful person, give them more to be successful at. Never mind sustaining success and making sure that one doesn’t kill the goose that laid the “golden egg of success.”

CCSD asked Principal Moore to take on the turn-around of another failing school, Fraser Elementary. In the Post and Courier on Saturday, May 10th, Principal Moore was lauded in a High Profile article. Now, don’t get me wrong, we should laud her to the high heavens, but we should also encourage her to preserve herself. Principal Moore reported in the recent article, that she rarely sleeps more than four hours a night.

Enough sleep we’ve been recently told is one of the most underrated preservers of good health. We know that adequate sleep allows the body to heal itself. It supports a vital immune system that resists disease. It helps prevent diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. We also know that good sleep can be undermined by stress which Principal Moore admits dogs her thoughts. Principal Moore said in the May 10th article that she cries with worry about making sure both schools achieve. Stress? this woman’s stress level is off the chart!

Stress can sometimes be counteracted by loving relationships, however, Reporter Diette Correge writes in her May 10th article of Principal Moore, “She talks about being single and not having kids or a significant other, and she says she gave her beloved Shih Tzu dog to her mother last year because she didn’t have enough time to take care of her.”

Today the Post and Courier contains an editorial that says that we should “Learn from Principal Moore”. Well, yes we should. About perseverance, about using all our abilities to do a job. About doing our very best. But we should also learn our limits. The unspoken message in this editorial, and the story from May 10th is that we should take on more than we can do to the detriment of our health and without the correct compensation. I am not damning Principal Moore. She is working to achieve success the best way that she knows how in our culture that touts workaholism as the goal for all high achieving professionals. She’s doing what we define for professionals as success. She’s working harder.

Hard work is essential to success, but so is being alive. We must get over our Puritanical notions that hard work is the only path to success. We must learn to seek balance. Rest, exercise, laughter, partnership– in the company of hard work. We must realize that stress is the number one cause of disease. So, I say to Principal Moore, delegate, train others to do what you are doing, work hard yes, but balance, protect your health, think of your future. If you want to be around to see the success that I am sure you will achieve at Fraser Elementary, seek balance.

The new aristocracy is composed of those who command both glamour and celebrity. In the United States we don’t have titled aristocracy. Early in the history of South Carolina, the Eight Lords Proprietors established a titled aristocracy based on land holdings. The titles were soon abandoned, but the power these individuals gained from large landholdings remained as South Carolina evolved. So, not including South Carolina, the United States was left as a country to develop our own system of ranking who’s at the top.

Throughout our history as a country, we in the States, have placed into pseudo-aristocracy those in power such as politicians or the very wealthy who could both buy or curry influence. Lots of people have written over the years of the fluidity with which those who were at the bottom could rise in status. To gain in status, someone could ally themselves to those in power or develop their own status by getting money or position.

These days it seems that money and political power are only two of the ways to obtain status. With the idolization of sports figures in the 20th century and the development of celebrity (movies, recording industry) as a mass cultural phenomenon, we now see that those who are at the top are the often the ones who capture their Warhol fifteen.

Enter the current state of glamor and celebrity. Reality TV such as The Real Housewives of NY conveys glamour and celebrity to people who are in my opinion, snobs. Today’s pseudo-aristocracy thrives on the twin currencies of rarity and exclusion. So do The Real Housewives. Have we left out work? Sometimes it seems that those at the top have done little to ‘earn’ their status. They are the product of public relations and marketing dollars.

Charleston, South Carolina was for many years a sedate town of people whose connections to the ancient landgraves and cassiques established them as powerful. Given the dearth of industry in this town it remained that in Charleston aristocracy continued to be conveyed by family ties.

Enter the creative class. What has been happening in Charleston since the days when I was the Executive Director of the Charleston Area Arts Council (it went defunct in 1998) is the rise of our city as a cultural magnet. Fed by the establishment of Spoleto USA and by Charleston’s own allure, creative types; artists, designers, composers, poets, chefs and now fashionistas have changed the categorization of who’s elite. They’ve done this by harnessing creativity and hard work with mass culture demands (food TV, poetry slams).

Not that these are the first of the cultural class to stamp their mark on Charleston. The Charleston renaissance of which DuBose and Dorothy Heyward, Elizabeth O’Neil Verner and Anna Heyward Taylor were only part, stimulated artistic endeavors in Charleston in a profound, lasting way. I would argue that they fed on the historic culture, the times and places of Charleston’s past as food for their poems, books, paintings, etchings, music and sculpture. This is not so with the new group. They seem to find Charleston and its surrounding natural beauty to be their muse but incorporate worldly views from ‘off’ (as we say here). In other words they look afar for their muse but use Charleston as their medium for growth.

Last week Charleston was home to the second Charleston Fashion Week. A group of highly talented men and women put on an event that put Charleston squarely on the status map. That they have done this in short order over two years is remarkable in all respects. My colleague Katie Kern is only one of the group, but she is the one that I know best. I am amazed that their vigor and their ability to make glamour and celebrity (derived from hard work) the new currency of influence in our town. Kudos Katie and all!