You think to have expressed and conveyed the importance and meaning of a team. Until one day, you look up and the team appears to be incomplete.
Since the return from the pandemic, following the COVID-19 (I’d like to mnemonically still remember short for Corona Virus December 2019) episode mix, teachers have had to get quite creative on rebuilding classrooms.
One of my greatest joy now is to have auction items for students to bid on using their leadership reward tickets our school (like many schools) has promoted for students to earn.
I have mentioned to other teachers how surprised my former students would be to see me create such a store when all they ever got was a piece of candy within a school year.
The flow of change is evident, feeling the emotional and spiritual null and void of our most recent students. Anything to create, encourage, and maintain good leadership, is seemingly a must now to strengthen effective learning environments.
Under the same respect given with his coaching, my husband has gotten used to me purchasing items I would think to be a great addition for upcoming auctions.
Coming from “stretching a dollar from fifteen cents” training in my American childhood life, I am grateful to find incredible items at a huge fraction of regular cost.
This last time, right before break, I was happily issuing prizes won by my students. Upon naming off the winner of a watch band, the student turned to retrieve it only to note that it no longer was there.
In subconscious disbelief, I walked over to the area of our store to retrieve it myself. My student was right. The band was clearly gone.
In a secure area, behind a table, stood our store for the last time. I knew then that I would have to resort to taking pictures of the next auction items to post rather than having them out for display.
I apologized to my student who would not be paying for the auction item won and to the class (and other classes to follow), emphasizing that when one decides to do wrong, the ripple effect is multidirectional.
While I sensed the guilty “sticky-finger” was in that class period, uncertain, I kept my silence. My decision to make the change for one’s choice was a message for all.
Building character need not be spoken at times, just seen and felt.
Recently my Advisory class completed a presentation on the positive impact of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
I was fortunate to have had a chance to see the home in Georgia he grew up in as a child as well as had the opportunity to stand right at the footstool of Abraham Lincoln monument to face the area where Dr. King had once made his speech back in 1965.
I recall in my younger years thinking those times weren’t so long ago.
These days, I am touched and moved, even if it seems that they don’t care about much (because, I find myself amidst middle school-aged hearts, minds, bodies, and spirits, where gradients of moods are far least of my worries), to actually be proven time and time again, that they care a lot more than we think.
To have students share genuine thoughts and ask sincere questions are priceless moments of building that team we all hope for to ever be a part of.
While I am not in power nor should I ever pretend to know what it was like back in the sixties and prior, I can only speak matter of fact given what I know.
I know that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had started college at the age of sixteen and received his doctorate degree in his late twenties where in that time, he was already well on his way to speaking behalf of many, moved not just by his purpose and message, but good character.
I am no magician nor would I respectfully think that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have suggested to be one as well.
When you sow seeds, you just hope for the best. You envision greatness, not really counting in your head how many shall prosper.
The belief is that every seed, even if not at the same level of potential, will grow in great abundance of goodness. Your task and thus, desire, is to start with one.
The possibilities of what was made to be should each seed push to grow to their greatest potential is not in your control. The control is within you to do your part.
We are well on our way to the end of first semester and while this is also about the time where I find myself having just overcome the crossover of feeling burdened by the many challenges of trying to herd students into the right direction, I celebrate around this time to feel that I finally have my students trusting me, that we are all on the same team.
Understandably, those first few months are trial by error. You push and pull with your heart, your mind, your body, and your spirit, making sure that your moves and gestures are sincere. Children, especially those who have been scorned, have a way to not just test your truth, but sense any insincerity.
I learned that sometime during his speech, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. started talking from his heart and not from the rest of the speech he had prepared.
Funny. As a mother and a teacher, while your intent can be planned out, your eventual actions become driven by feeling your audience.
While you know what should be covered in the time you present your case each moment, it is what you say and how you say it in between the lesson that sometimes the very part needed spoken is delivered.
When my own children are silent upon my words; my students sit in silence after having just heard me speak my truth, I am rewarded by the depth of such quitude.
Whatever I said, however I may have said it, somehow I can sense it was the one thing they needed to hear.
What gets lodged into souls is reaffirmed back to me in the years to follow.
Former students of mine will drop by to recall what they remembered I said that indeed stuck with them; several times I’ll get it in a letter- reminding me of what I would always tell them (it can change from year to year, but it always had something to do with building strong and good character).
My children, whether spoken or not, I see my plantings in their actions. Of course, in both cases, my own children or not, I am aware others have planted seeds in each as well.
Just like any sower, however, you hope your water and soil to be the purest and most withstanding. You believe this not for your sake, but for the fruits you envision every tree sowed to have even after you have left this world.
You cannot look at it from the perspective of being remembered. The way I see it, when someone wants to promote positive change, it is because they cannot see themselves just sitting back letting the negative happen.
Whether you are here to see the fruits of your labor or not, those who are entangled with their own drive and passion to enact the fire within will do just that to the end of their time.
We should welcome and be thankful to refer to such case as the “good” curse.
Servitude in the most altruistic sense does not glorify amongst the crowd that have mustered upon such presence. In fact, those who follow you wherever you go can be quite overwhelming to a point where at times, you hide away to be unseen from a celebration, watching in silence and secrecy as others openly celebrate.
Doing is not merely for oneself. Doing is simply because. Because there is only one you you know who must.
You answer not to oneself, but to this feeling, this knowing, that if not you, then who?
You can only hope that you serve to the fullest and when complete, you have served well.
Commemorating one’s positive impact usually takes place long after one has left the world.
When the purpose is being driven from within, the castigations must be accepted ahead of every step.
Not all want your light. You keep going, still. You must.
Death will have already happened at the moment you decide to stop.
Hearing myself remind my children they were taught to overcome and persevere, looking at my own students nod in confidence about celebrating growth from where they are now- these are those moments where all that other stuff- those moments where you were tried to not overcome by the hopes and disbeliefs of others, wither away.
None matter, but that purpose still within.
One must accept you won’t always be around to see the fruits of your labor. The victory of your works may take more than a few seasons.
That ship of a team? It can be as big and as lasting after many generations to follow.
