Several months ago, my blogger friend Robyne invited Mike and me to have to breakfast with her and her BFF Airick Leonard West, a KCMSD school board member. We had a lovely time; I was concerned, however, that the most memorable portion of our breakfast conversation involved my son and a certain past-time he has adopted which I will not be discussing on my blog in case he ever decides on a career in politics.

Over the last few months, I have crossed paths several times with ALW in various KCMSD forums, meetings, and events and actively managed to not draw attention to myself in each situation for fear that he would say, “Why do I know her? THAT’S RIGHT! She’s the one with the kid that does that thing…”

(seriously, Zion – don’t worry – not putting it in print unless they advance me several thousand dollars for my best-selling book)

Sooooo fast-forward to Thursday at noon. Our school advisory chairperson emails me and says, “Hey, remember that training thing we talked about a month or so ago and you said it sounded interesting? It’s tomorrow and Saturday. Wanna go?”

And somehow we managed to shift the time-space continuum and my work schedule and I found myself driving to Union Station to this leadership training thingie. Seriously – I didn’t even for sure know where it was, let alone what it was.

What I did know, however, was that ALW would be facilitating it.

“Please, God,” I prayed. “Let there be 3,000 people there so I can get lost in the crowd.”

I didn’t have to worry. I can’t imagine how many people that man meets in a single day, but thankfully, his face didn’t register anything even remotely close to, “Oh yeah.. she’s the one with the kid who enjoys….”

I breathed a sigh of relief and took my seat amidst the 35 or so other parents and community members and settled in to be trained. For leadership. Or something.

And this is where things got interesting. And disappointing. Slightly depressing. Not as hopeful as I’d hoped.

But really, there were good parts. There was a large focus in this meeting on being present in each moment, being the facilitators of our lives. This is something I’ve been focusing on lately, and it was interesting to apply it in terms of parental involvement at the school and district level.

We were challenged to look at the world in a new way every single day, to assess patterns that were holding us back from recognizing our potential.

ALW wisely told us, “You don’t want to pull into the driveway of your life and realize you don’t know how you got here.”

More importantly, when we are unable to affect change in failing or under-performing schools, we have failed our children on the most basic of levels.

It was inspiring and informative and I almost - almost - got out of there with a sense of hope. But here in the really real world, we know that’s not actually allowed because just as that glimmer of hope started to appear, he said, “Let’s break up into groups.”

Oh my god.

Groups?!? Seriously?!? Group work is the reason I almost dropped out of high school. No groups, please. Can I just do this by myself and you guys can critique when I’m not around to cry about it? Pleeeeeease?

No such luck.

So I sat, and I tried to listen, and then I tried to be actively engaged ~ and present ~ and then I failed miserably and I felt horrible for being a deterrent to people who were trying really hard to discuss solutions to the problems our children face.

I don’t play well with others.

I don’t. I’ve known this for years. Give me a project with specifics – figure out how to do this, Sara, and present your findings to the board – and oh my god, you know you’re going to get a book.

Ask me to work with people with whom I have nothing in common and form a cohesive unit to advocate for change?

I’m sorry. Did I mention that I’m good with recognizing my limitations?

This was not my favorite experience. At all.