"Find What You Love and Take The Risk"

Stacy Theien-Collins is the principal of Murray Middle School in St. Paul. This is her fourth year at Murray as principal and twenty-seventh year as an educator.

Where It All Began

I started thinking about becoming a teacher in my junior year of high school; I had a pretty amazing history teacher. I started as a history major going to go into teaching at Moorhead State. While I was in a very early class, I had to do 20 hours of service learning in a school. Because of my schedule, I couldn’t do it in a school, so I did it in an after school tutoring program. I worked with migrant farm workers’ children and many kids from Mexico. I very quickly decided that I wanted to change my major to either ELL (English Language Learners) or special education.

I did not want to be a principal when I started out, but I think it really had everything to do with being both challenged and supported by the mentor teachers that I worked with.  

Never A Bad Day

I think there’s something that happens every day where you’re proud of an individual that has been working on something or the growth of a teacher. I just think that’s the beauty of being an educator; you have pride of being part of a community that has students at the center of everything that you do. To be able to pick one favorite memory would be difficult. Part of being an educator, is that you notice and celebrate those things for the sake of the kids and their success and for the sake of the teachers that you’re supporting when you’re in a role of a principal. It would be hard to pick a proudest moment; I show up every day and have something happen that we celebrate as being a prideful moment.

Reflecting on her choice to become a principal at Murray Middle School.

Murray Middle School, St. Paul

I love, love, love coming to work every day. There’s never been a day where I question coming to work.

I’ve learned something about life every single day. With 700 student stories, almost 100 adult stories, and everything that walks through this building--it’s made me appreciate and respect what I have and what I’ve been presented with. I have the opportunity to be a part of something for the sake of learners, so just being appreciative has been a pretty consistent lesson for me. Growing up in northern Minnesota, I did not have the diversity of perspective available to me that I have here, so I think some of those lessons that come to me every day enriches who I am professionally and personally.  

It’s Not Always Easy

A few of the hardest parts that come along with a career that includes managing so many kids are: how do I, as a principal, set that bar for our teachers that might be struggling? How do I make sure the best adults are in front of the kids all the time? How do I make sure kids that are falling behind and in pain are connected to learning in a way that’s right for them? Those are all really hard things and they show up every day. In a lot of situations those might be the things that we’re celebrating and have real pride for because we connected with the kid, or a teacher that was struggling with something just had an amazing day. So those things can be really hard, but also our best moments.

Stacy Theien-Collins talks about the relationships she builds with the students.

To me, you cannot be a quality educator without considering the relationship. You operate within a relationship framework and the kids know when you’re being authentic. When you work this way, they trust you. Your word choice needs to be professional, I’m not their “friend.” I am not in the seventh grade hallway or talking in the locker room, right? Building a relationship and having a relationship framework is absolutely part of the heart of building a middle school model, and that’s why our schedule supports that. We start our day with a twenty minute morning meeting time where we do restorative practice community building circle because relationship, student voice, and getting to know students at that level is important to connect them to true learning.  

How I Knew

As educational leaders, you have strong mentors working with people in a team and they believe in you and support you. You really wanna  grow and reflect with that support. You take those kinds of risk to continue to move up and support education in a different way.  

If I had not had the mentors that pushed me into leadership, I might still be part of the leadership team for an associate superintendent in Minneapolis and be perfectly happy. I just think the right people-- I don’t know if right people is the right word--who supported me and pushed me into leadership. They convinced me to say yes, let’s try it, why not?

There’s lots of advice to give to college freshmen. I think one of the things that I would have you really think about is to understand your passion. There’s loving going to work every day and getting paid for it, or having to go to work every day just to get paid for it, so you can pay the rent. Really find what that love is because I said it earlier, I love coming here every day. Do we have tough days, yes, but when you find that passion it really makes twenty-seven years go by in a blink of an eye. Find that and stick with it. Don’t be defined by something you’re supposed to be or what somebody tells you you should be, connect and find that and go for it. Find what you love and take the risk and go for it. No matter when it happens, find that passion.

Interviewee: Stacy Theien-Collins

Interviewers: Kaija Eckholm, Emily Keis, and Emily Kranz