I just need to be honest for a minute...Will you let me?
1. I am a curious, questioning, black and white kind of person. What you see is what you get with me.
I have this questioning side that bothers many people, mainly because I just tend to spit things out when they come to me. Sometimes, ok many times, my filter doesn't kick in till too late. My questioning side makes others feel like I'm challenging their authority, when in reality, it's just that I'm trying to understand the decision, understand the process, just plain ole' understand. I also am a very black and white kind of person. There's a right, ethical, judicious, safe for all way of doing things, and there's the opposite. This is why it took so long for me to really take to Twitter and blogging. My thinking was that of "You guys go ahead and I'll just let you get fired or in trouble, while I stand here and keep my job."
2. I think what you do says way more that what you say.
I am a people watcher by nature, just ask my husband as I point people's outfits to him, then hit his arm for looking. I watch what you do, how you treat others, to decide if I should trust you or not. I also watch if what you say you will do, you actually do. I live by the old saying, "Burn me once, shame on you, burn me twice, shame on me." Whether this is a saying to hold dear or not, that's up to you. For me, it just is what it is.
3. I think where you send your children to school says a lot about who you trust and what you hold valuable.
All of my kiddos have gone through elementary (my last starts Kinder this year with me) where I have worked, going on 13 years now. I trust the staff at my school to be the best teacher for them, and when my children show up in their class year after year, I know that they know that I'm trusting them to their education. Other staff may send their child to the school they are zoned to for a variety of reasons, but I choose to send mine to my 80% ED, mostly Hispanic/African-American/LEP school, where they are the minority white, not at-risk kids. I want them to be exposed to different cultures, different things. I want them to know that they are blessed, that they need to stick up for others, that they need to help others. I want them to know the value of working hard, not having everything handed to them.
4. I have a narrow mind sometimes, but I'm working on that. I think others do too.
I have heard numerous education professionals from a variety of places say, "Why would a teacher continue to come to work at this school, this district, with "these" kids, if it was always so hard, so critical, so (fill in the blank) for them? They should stop teaching and find another (happier) profession for themselves." And on this, I usually just stay quiet. But my thought is this, maybe that teacher who is unhappy, critical, whatever the negative adjective may be in your mind, is just STUCK, and feels like there's no way out of being stuck. You see, I can say this, because there was a few years in my educational career where I felt stuck. We never know the baggage a staff member brings with them to school each day. In my going on 17 years in education, my husband has been hospitalized no less than 5 times and has been unemployed for nearly 8 of those years, on and off, for a variety of reasons. You see, I felt stuck, because I wasn't in the grade level that was my passion or in a place I felt valued or in a friendly place. I was the breadwinner for my family of 5, and couldn't just stop teaching, stop working. I also felt stuck because I never felt like I was qualified for anything else, other than teaching, since my degree itself was in Elementary Education. Am I still stuck? No, but I have days where it creeps in, when I'm feeling overwhelmed, etc, but in my world, older = wiser, so I've learned to cope with this and find ways to overcome this personally. I have challenged myself (in an earlier blog post) to take time to listen. In listening to staff, we help them realize their potential, help them realize that they are not alone, that there are ways of becoming unstuck. For me, it's in learning, in education. Like my Twitter header says, "I seriously love learning." and I find that the more I learn, the more I need to learn and in doing so, I open more doors for myself, I become more confident in my skill set, in myself period. How can you help someone today?
5. I recently got to hear from a speaker that's message was about "Leaving a Legacy" and it got me thinking, what am I leaving?
No one wants to ever think of themselves leaving this place, but part of his message was to do less "I" talk. A lot ironic, since this whole blog post is filled with "I" things, but it makes me wonder what I'm leaving for my kids, for my family. I watched my parents go through a divorce as a young child. I watched my Mom work 2 and 3 jobs to make ends meet. I was the first to attend college, still the only one to this day, and finish without financial help from family. I want better for my kids, so that's why I work hard like my Mom to show them the value of hard work, helping others, overcoming failures, achieving success gracefully, and on and on. All of these things I learned from my Mom and Dad and from many other folks who have had a tremendous impact in my life even as I entered teaching. What impact will you make on others this year? I hope it's a legacy type of impact. I hope it's one you would follow after yourself. That's what I'm working on.
Thanks for letting me be honest for a minute.
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