I’ve gotten pretty good at having students share with their peers a score they give themselves with their level of understanding a concept or problem just discussed if not, solved.
Should you not get the most honest response of how you think you are doing if you simply ask your own self without having to be intimidated of what others may think of you? After all, no other being hears your thoughts and feels your feelings- just you.
Funny thing is, do this after awhile and many students openly raise their numbers in the air for others to see. Noted, there are those who want people to know what they think of themselves per problem or skill being learned.
It is of a great awe as the one adult standing before a room seeing children trusting the environment they are surrounded by with their own self-reflections.
It’s as if they want to show their strength in owning where they stand. I’m not just talking about those with highest self-acclaimed scores. There are those who accept themselves to be grasping concepts under standard level and raise their number with admittance.
With the score of 4-1, four being, “I could teach you how to do this”, it’s great to acknowledge the raised threes and fours.
Then, there are those at a two, “I’m still trying to figure this one out”, who will raise their number in the air.
While there are those of us who feel mighty good of where we stand, I am pleased to see those who also can own moments where they may not be at their highest level of standing.
From where I see it, there are just some of us who want to face our truths as we go through our journeys, owning a moment for what it is, not fearing permanence. That ease and comfort of ownership strengthening as we go.
And, then, of course, there are those who confidently raise a four in the air, but, I dare not say a word to crumble their self-confidence, us both meeting eye contact, understanding the secret of their truth.
The truth subsides within and summative assessments speak that silent conversation of me knowing where they truly stand without openly sharing.
There is no harm in loving and praising yourself, even if it means that you have to work toward what you believe by faith until you get there.
Self, formative assessments are a reflection of an exact moment in time. Students know that summative assessments will be the truth in the end.
Why dare I see wrong with one believing and foreseeing what they aspire to have or become?
Moments, days, weeks, months, years, however, cannot be predicted as close as we would like to plan out every detail.
It takes a lot of embracing of your heart, mind, body, and spirit to come to terms that no matter how much in control you think and hope to be, you must accept that life was not meant to be robotic, like a machine at a factory where everyone is just meant to contribute their part with no heart or emotion.
While there are moments great to be on autopilot, knowing you won’t be missing much (me finding myself driving into my driveway not even recalling the entire drive from the freeway), the rest of incremental moments has to be fully lived, engaged with your investment in how you hope to make your mark.
As I’ve mentioned in a past journal, while my family does not follow television series or watch anything regularly, we set times for movie binging. These usually range from Fridays to Sundays where we arrive to knowing there is absolutely nothing on our plate for an early (before sunrise) rise or the day of.
My uttermost favorite movie starring Adam Sandler (Yes. That goes with Waterboy and all other movies we have [Yes. All in DVDs.] where we have repeatedly laughed our hearts out watching.) is Click, where he plays Michael, a hard-working father who wants nothing more than to give his family a comfortable life.
The problem is, as the breadwinner, he epitomizes that must put work first attitude, always putting off everything else, that of which includes investing more time with his family.
Given this remote, he discovers the power to fast-forward through any unwanted moments in his life.
On autopilot, having apparently gone through moments in life, he can be present, but just not in memory. He skips through sickness, the redundancy of having to get ready for work, going through unwanted traffic, and even feuds with his wife (which were interestingly about him spending time with the family).
While this all seemed like a magical opportunity, as that saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for”, we could sense problems to arise from all of Michael’s fast-forward frenzy.
Having been inactive during all times he had fast-forwarded through, his wife and children begin to clearly lose connection with him as time progressed.
Soon, Michael finds himself fast-forwarding beyond his control as the remote’s feature follows the patterns he has created for himself.
All that he had skipped in the past were now freely skipping on their own.
As he fast-forwards, so does time.
He suddenly comes to realize that he no longer wants to fast-forward through parts of his life anymore. However, with the remote keeping track of what he has fast-forwarded through in the past, it is too late to make change.
Soon, years go by and he finds that while he reaches that life of success he had always hoped for, he has lost his loving wife to another man while also having missed seeing and being actively there to watch his children grow up.
My husband and I always find watching this movie so moving, with such a deep message about love, life, and family. With our ages together, we present a mean average of over half a century in this world, thirty of those still breaking through barriers to continue to raise five children to the best of our abilities.
Yes. Forty days and forty nights in the dessert without food and water is unfathomable. Forty years in the wilderness with manna, quail, and water must have been humbling beyond compare. Everyone has a story of historical struggles.
That promised land can be recalled to as having being heard of, seen ahead, fought for, lived through, lost, and hoped for again.
There is always that one or two who will work toward betterment for the family.
There will always be the challenges to get to what was envisioned as that promised land.
There is always that wishful thinking there were no giants or strife to have to overcome just to get there.
For someone to tell us to rejoice during our troubles is understandably hard to listen to and yet alone, do as we are told.
We all want to see ourselves fulfilled. And yet, the part where I find real tears coming out (because they come out without me thinking or trying) during the movie, Click, is where Michael rewinds back to the last time he sees his father, having learned he had moved forward to a time where his father no longer lived.
Observing his behavior in his office while his son tries his best to get his father’s attention, he sees his own father walking in.
His fast-forwarded self kept yelling at his rewounded back to self to look up at his father who was just asking him to have dinner with he and his son. Too busy, as usual, he watched himself having briskly rejected the idea.
To add injury to the rejection, he yells at his father for his prying. There, following that moment, he found himself rewinding over and over, was, “I love you, son.” “I love you, son.” “I love you, son.”
And, with that, the fast-forwarded Michael, clicks pause on the remote, walks over to his father to give him a kiss and say back, “I love you, too, Pops.”
This was the last time he ever got to see his father because he had been too busy to make it to his funeral.
It is one thing for a chemically-dependent or neglectful father or mother who partied while others raised you to have been a part of your life. However, do we take for granted those parents who have been nothing but there, by your side, growing up? Taking those unspoken sacrifices to be a part of your life instead of having greater riches or out and about finding time for themselves?
I was ashamed and embarrassed of my life growing up here in America, clearly seeing without discussing that I could see we were at the bottom of the financial barrel. Worse, I could see the defeat in Papa’s eyes. His heart, his mind, his body, and his spirit had surrendered to his found circumstance.
Helpless as a child, it hurt me. All I could do was trust that one day he would see his sacrifices were all well worth it in me.
He may have let his gasoline station, bakery, and earlier accommodations business go to find himself becoming a janitor with other odd jobs and attempted successes here, but I recall moments sitting on the couch with him watching cartoons, laughing together while watching Eddie Murphy’s first release of Coming to America.
I recall just getting in the car with him several times just to drive silently around the neighborhood, just us two.
He may have pulled away when he started to perhaps sense I was growing up and needing my space and independence, but he was there. I can still see him smiling from afar as I would walk or drive toward his direction.
Life takes over and we find things to fill our days.
I look back and give myself a two in all those days I was fully busied with the caring of my children, husband, and home. I think now how I gave myself no other choice but to take Papa for granted while still trying to get acclimated to adult life and having a family of my own.
Seeing or hearing Papa was enough for me to believe he would be there when things for me would slow down. Even though I hadn’t clearly set when that may well have been exactly, I was trying to get him to see my finish line.
Speaking at my high school graduation, graduating first from college with a teacher’s certification, the one I told him I would strive to get rather than a law degree, living in our first purchased home, being a stay-at-home mom were all apparently not enough for me yet.
I had wanted him to see more of me.
On the day he would leave, I recall crying in his arms, curled up like a baby, not knowing how to tell him how I wasn’t ready to let him go. There was so much he still needed to see of me and all that was ahead.
I remember he left shortly after midnight that night. I recalled trying to cry again, but I couldn’t.
I was like David who prayed to have his son spared but then, upon the news his son had passed, he knew there was nothing more he could do. Papa had left.
He didn’t want to go. I didn’t want him to go. But nonetheless, he left. Neither of us had a say to the matter at call.
There will never be any regret that I was not present to see my Papa’s last breath. He gave me the biggest reassurance he was fine before I left that night only to get the call that he had gone just as soon as I arrived home.
Being in his arms is what I will remember. Being in his arms is what he would have wanted me to remember, alive and warm.
You reflect on your life and give yourself a four, a three, a two, or hopefully, at the least of times, a one. This is just a feeling or belief. In the end, moments don’t define your future.
Living your moments and taking each for what they are, living through the good times where you see yourself scoring a mighty four versus those moments where you own your twos means nothing more than a reflection of time.
I may have not been a four within every moment as a daughter with Papa, but I can smile and think, he left knowing I would be fine, always aiming for that four, even on my 3, 2, or dare I hold up high, my rare 1 days.
We can build machines all we want to take away what we may think we don’t need to get through, but as Michael realized at the climax of the movie, Click, every moment matters.
Life’s lessons are the scores of our moments.
To actively breathe in and until we finally arrive to living out the present, is a priceless gift.
How can one expect to pass the final examination of life if they were never there to study each given present?
