Yesterday I saw someone I hadn't seen in quite some time and as usual, the question gets asked, "How are you doing?" My standard response is "I'm making it." And when I saw her face after saying that, I could tell that I was being a "Debbie Downer" to her at that moment with my response.
At my school, we used to have a teacher that when asked the same question, would always reply with "Living the dream, living the dream!" It would catch me off guard and make me think, "Yeah, you know any day above ground is a good day!" I've taken to ending any email I send out with a salutation which reads, "Have a blessed day!" and I truly hope that whoever reads it does.
As I've stated in some other blog posts, teaching is a ridiculously hard profession. Things change rapidly, day to day, even moment to moment in a class period, and there is an almost unreasonable amount of stress that comes with educating students, communicating with families, and just staying current on content and other things. So, shouldn't we do everything in our power to build each other up instead of tear down?
I'm not sure what season your staff are in where you are, and I don't mean literal season like spring, summer, winter, or fall, but encouragement, disillusion, reenergized, defeated, etc. But it seems that during this time of the school year and during the middle of the spring semester too, that we as teachers get weary, worn out, feeling defeated and we need to be encouraged daily. Some folks are born encouragers who leave you feeling better for just seeing them, knowing them, listening to them, etc. Some folks are not and need to be encouraged. I think we all fall into both of these categories depending on the season of life we are in. We need to "carry our own weather" as The Leader in Me program says. We need to "be kinder than required at all times" as I saw posted in a class at my school. We should not be merely surviving, not just "making it", but thriving. The moment we are just surviving, we need to seek out those born encouragers, but not to be their Debbie Downers, but to get some refreshment so we can always give our students our best effort and not just a partial effort. I hope you are more than just "making it". I hope you are thriving. I hope you are helping others to thrive and speaking life into them.
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