Hello and Happy Tuesday Learners!
Today I am happy to bring you an extra special motivator on an extra special day! Today is 7 years that Kate and I have been together! It has been a long journey spanning a quarter of our lives, and there’s no one I would rather spend it with than you Kate. You have been there and supported me through college, my time in public education, and especially now; giving me your faith and support to make this dream happen. Thank you.
I also want to take this post to thank other people who have had an impact on my life. The people who have given me opportunities, believed in and supported me, and who have been there through the rocky times as well as the happy ones. Thank you to the many individuals I look up to as mentors, and thank you to all those who I have had the opportunity to mentor. You are who I am directing the rest of the post to and about.
As I discussed in Friday’s Reflections & Ruminations post I discussed what it means to find your “why” and why is it so important to do so (ha, see what I did there?). Today I want to discuss more about my whys, and how I designed a system to remind me of the good I’ve done.
My Temple Of Why
One of my character traits is that I always want to do more, that I never feel like what I’ve done is enough or that I could have always done more. In some cases this is true, and is a good learning experience, but as Captain Picard put it, “sometimes you can do everything right and still fail.” To help combat this, when I started my formal public education career back in 2014 as a student teacher, I began to collect the popsicle sticks of students who I had had an impact on.
I used the popsicle sticks in class to call on students or to make groups. It was a way to make things fair, to allow or force everyone to have a voice in the class. At times I would pull them in what I called my “lottery” where I would allow them to choose groups - usually letting the last person choose any groups; sometimes winning looks like losing folks, that’s part of life!
At the end of the year I would say that if I had had an impact on any of them, to add it to my temple, so that I would know that my life had had meaning - that how I had used my time had positively impacted another’s life. To my surprise some students wrote things on their popsicle sticks, and I kept that tradition going - always making it optional.
In addition I kept a secret folder at home called “why the **** did I do this?” (*’s included), where I would put letters or emails from kids or parents. I would encourage every educator, and person, to keep a similar folder for those tough times. It is not how much time we have that matters - but what we do with that time sure does.
I am so eternally grateful to every single person who I have been able to have an impact on. Working with you has been the honor of my life and you taught me so much, about myself and about how precious & pure an open-minded pursuit of curiosity and wonder is. I will always be there to support you, cheer you on, and to give you recommendations or advice. And to those who have reached out to me after my class, you will always be my students and I know you will do great things in this world.
Thank you for your time in reading this, and if it made you think, please consider hitting that heart and sharing it with those who need to hear it’s message. It is in the words of my students that I asked to be judged by fate and by the world. To know that my time has been meaningful, and that if I continue to be blessed with the opportunity; I will continue to help others overcome their struggles and find inner achievement and happiness.
This post is dedicated to my loved ones; know you are special, cared about and loved. Thank you <3.