You can be ANYTHING........

I have a very dear friend who grew up amazingly different than I did. Not only geographically did we grow up different, but we were raised by two extremely different families. My parents were married six months shy of 50 years before my Mom’s death. Her parents divorced when she was 2 leaving her an only child compared to me having 2 siblings. Her mother worked full time as an accountant in a huge cooperation. My mom worked part time jobs when I was little and only went to full time employment when my younger brother was around 10.  She attended church at Christmas and Easter while I was in church every time the doors were unlocked. She was taught a woman was equal to a man while my mother taught me that the man was the head of the household and while you have a voice, the husband ultimately was responsible for major family decisions.

Now, the way I’ve described this makes it sound as if one of us had it better than the other. This is not the case. I adore this friend. She is a 2^nd sister to me. I adore her mother. In fact, when my own mother passed away, my friend’s Mom was the 2^nd person I called.  Even with our crazy different backgrounds, we’ve ended up living relatively similar adult lives. We both married in our mid 20s, are still married, had 2 children, are both educators, and are both extremely busy with our kids, our churches, our careers, and our passions.  I was talking with her late one night last week. She was down. She was extremely stressed out. She was moved into a new position in her company with a not so friendly boss, her youngest son is giving her some minor teenage trouble, her husband received a promotion and it is requiring a lot of travel, she gives and gives at her church, she is a den Mom, her mom’s health is declining and she is her caregiver, and her husband’s very troubled brother has moved into their garage apartment.  I listened to her vent for several minutes and I asked her why she felt the need to do it all.

She laughed and said, “I am the daughter of a feminist.” We were taught that. I listened some more while thinking about this feminist thing. Most of my friends are the first-generation daughters of the feminist movement. This movement taught woman that we could be anything we wanted to be. But as I listened to my friend, my friend who was raised by a real feminist, I realized something. The feminist movement taught us we could do anything, but I am afraid the message we heard was we must do everything.

I could not help but think about our work here at school.  (Sorry to the men who work in our schools, this may be message not intended for you) Men tend to do this better than we women, but it may help you understand us a little better. We stress ourselves out by trying to do it all when in fact what we tend to do is do none of it well.  I was in a meeting with a teacher last week who discussed her math lesson. She talked about the manipulatives, the worksheet, the video, the timer, the game she’d created, and the cool exit slip. What she failed to mention was when she was teaching the content. She was so focused on doing everything-manipulatives, technology, independent practice, closing the lesson that she forgot the most important part-teaching! 

Remember-at the end of the day-what is most important-build relationships with your students. Build their trust, build their confidence, built their character. Teach them. Yes, be innovative, yes teach like your hair is on fire, but don’t forget to TEACH them. And ask for help. If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you.   Stop trying to be everything and be great at the one thing that we went into this job for-TEACHING.  Focus relentlessly on being the best teacher your students ever had or ever will have.  Does this mean that your bulletin board may not get changed every month or even this quarter? Does this mean your weekly newsletter will not be fancy? Does this mean your lesson plans may be sloppy? Does this mean you may be late turning in your SLO (shhhh!!!)? 

You know my friend’s Mom taught her correctly. You can be anything you want to be? So why not choose to be the best teacher your children have ever or will ever have?

A Masterpeice

While my family may disagree, I actually love to cook. Not that my family reads this blog, but the reason they would disagree is that I don’t do it as often as I probably should. Yet, what they don’t understand is that they are the most boring eaters in the world. I live with three very picky eaters. I am NOT a picky eater (obviously). I am adventurous with food. I love playing around with different foods and different spices and even techniques of cooking. I love to watching cooking shows and create my own dishes from those shows. It is just hard to do that when your family will not eat many things. Yet, most times, they seem to enjoy what I’ve created.

It is not often that my husband and I are in the kitchen together. In the mornings he is in the kitchen alone making his breakfast while I am getting ready for school and in the evening, he is still at football practice while I construct supper. Yet, the other night we happened to be together in the kitchen. He was talking to me as I prepared supper.  As I moved around the kitchen making my secret family recipe for biscuits, he suddenly asked me why I didn’t have a measuring cup out and I just laughed. My husband is in the medical field….numbers matter, precise calculations matter, exact directions matter. Me……not so much. I experiment, I dabble, I invent, and I create. I’ve probably never made the same recipe more than one time. I read recipes all the time, but I never really use them exactly as they are written. This is how I was taught to cook by my family’s Helena. I call her Helena because she was much more than a maid, cook, housekeeper, nanny. She was our everything. I spent hours watching her cook. Helena never used a recipe because Helena couldn’t read.  She, like me, loved to cook. She loved making different things. She had lots of tricks that she taught me through the years like how to make sure a pound cake never falls, how to make perfect rice every single time, how to make dumplings that would make you cry they’re so good, and how to make biscuits. Man, oh man, I can hardly eat a biscuit anywhere because they never compare to Helena’s biscuits.

As I was talking to my husband about how I could make these perfect biscuits every time without a recipe, I started thinking about the beginning of the school year and I started thinking about how we deliver content. I’ve always been one of those to quote the cheesy saying, “I don’t teach content, I teach children.” And I really believe that. Just like I am in the kitchen, I never taught the same lesson, standard, curriculum, etc. the same way twice. I either changed it because it didn’t work the first time, I realized a better way, my children were different than last year’s students, or someone showed me how to do it more effectively.  I was told in college that good lesson plans were the ones where anyone could come in, read them, and be able to teach it just as well as you could. I believed that early on in teaching-before I realized that good teaching is an art. I remember one time in my classroom I had been out sick, like very sick. Upon my return I was doing my best to just be at school and I had not prepared lesson plans. I thought-I got this-I’ve been doing this long enough that I could wing it. I was wrong. Lesson plans were essential for my success in the classroom. Each year, I would pull out my lesson plans from the previous year and I would start playing with them. Just like my cooking recipes, I started with the basic design of each lesson, unit, or theme and continually added or took away parts until it was perfect. I used collaboration with my peers to reflect on how it was done, what they could add, what our current students needed, and how together we could make it better. Many times I was very successful and sometimes I failed at my attempts to teach a concept, a standard, or a theme. 

Just like in the kitchen where I experiment, dabble, invent, and create based on what ingredients I have and what my people need (i.e. Rosebro1 needs gluten free, Rosebro2 need protein and carbs, and Hubby needs enough for supper and lunch the next day), our lesson planning should be the same. We should look at the needs of our students, use what resources we have, and use our art to create the most amazing learning for our students. What you will find when you stop using route lesson plans, is that your students learn more, you are more engaged, and the art of teaching becomes a masterpiece. 

A New Pair of Shoes

Last week, the long awaited announcement of this year's musical was finally made.  This is always fun to watch. I love how the students have been guessing since last year’s musical what would be selected. I love dropping incorrect hints to students to throw them off track. I love the faces of the students-even the ones who have no clue what was happening-when the musical was announced. Cinderella. My all-time absolute favorite Disney character is Cinderella. In fact, even as a 40-something year old, I cannot go to Disney World without standing in the ridiculously long line to meet Cinderella.  I am so super excited about this play and watching our students produce what is bound to be one of our best yet.

As I was discussing our reveal with my sister on Saturday as she follows JBE on facebook and had seen the video, she noted my excited. She asked me why it was that a grown woman would love this fairy tale so very much.  You see my sister despises these fairy tale stories for two simple reasons: (1) she hates that there is a deceased parent in every movie and (2) until Brave and Frozen there were no fairy tales that didn’t involve a man saving a woman from doom (my sister believes strongly that women can save themselves).  Of course I started talking about Cindy’s dress and the funny stepsisters, and the prince. Realizing that I would never win an argument with my sister, I changed the subject. But on the ride home after leaving my sister, I started thinking about some of the real reasons I love Cinderella so much.  And I realized it has to do with so much more than just Prince Charming, a beautiful chariot, and a "to-die" for dress.  I realized that what I loved best about Cinderella carried over into my teaching.

The first is to always be kind-no matter what!  Bless Cindy’s heart. Could you imagine what her life was like and how kind she continued to be to everyone-the animals, her stepmother, and her stepsisters. Being kind is not always easy. It actually takes strength to be kind. I hope that as we start this new school year we take some time to teach our students the importance of kindness and generosity. Secondly, and probably one of my biggest “take aways” from Cinderella is to believe in yourself-even when others do not. Cinderella was a mere house maid, seamstress, and cook.  Yet, she never stop believing that she was a kind, beautiful girl who had great things to accomplish. So many of our students don’t have that inner voice reminding them that they are worthy, that they are important, and that someone loves them-be that voice for them.  Cinderella was so positive-even when she had every reason to be negative and down trodden.  Even with the evil stepmother and stepsisters, there was good in her life. Cinderella saw that. It is so easy-almost second nature-to think negative and to go to a negative place. But if Cindy had been negative, she would have missed out on so much. It is easy to focus on the hardships of this job, our students, our never ending to do list, but if you stop and look around-we are the luckiest people in the world. What amazing work we get to do each day!  We have never ending influence and should that not be one of the utmost positivity?  And finally-and probably my most important lesson from Cinderella-never stop dreaming! BUT don’t forget you have to work for those dreams.  Cinderella dreamed of going to the ball-she craved it, she fantasized about it, she couldn't let that dream go. Yet, Cinderella didn’t get to that ball by chance. She worked her way there. She was given a ridiculous amount of chores, she worked with her “friends” to make a dress when she realized she had nothing to wear, and she did all of this with hard work and a great attitude.  Success has often been stated as preparation meeting opportunity and this is a great (albeit fictional) example.  Of course it took a little magic to get Cindy to the ball, but it first took her hard work. I hope when we teach our students that they can do or be anything, we remind them that it only happens if they put the work into it. Inspiring our students to have a great work ethic is no easy tasks, but failing to teach them that makes the rest of your teaching for naught. 

My favorite Cinderella quote has always been, “a dream is a wish your heart makes.”  I dream for each of you to never forget those lessons from Cinderella and if you forget just remember……Cinderella really teaches us that there is proof that a new pair of shoes can change your life.

Say Yes to the.......

This summer I had a small medical procedure that left me in bed for 3 days.  Now anyone who knows me, knows this was painful for everyone around me.  I don’t do laziness and I definitely don’t do hours and hours of nothing.  While I tried to read and possibly do some work on my laptop, what I found myself doing more than ever before was watching TV. This is not something I do a whole lot of either, but I was able to catch up on some Netflix binge watching. I then began watching the most interesting show-which probably everyone, except me, has been watching for years.  Say Yes to the Dress is a reality show set in New York’s famous Klienfeld’s bridal shop.  The thirty-minute show follows 2 or 3 brides as they shop, with their entourage, for the most perfect wedding dress. Normally I would never watch such a show that reinforces problematic values like excessive materialism, objectification of women, and a loose definition of marriage, but I just could not stop watching one episode after another.

 As I started watching this show, I became caught up in the bride finding her perfect dress. I loved watching the variety of dresses, the crazy costs of these dresses, and the moment when each bride finally says “yes to the dress.” 

I watched these girls come into the store looking for their perfect dress. I saw brides get frustrated by their opinionated entourages. I cried with brides who missed their Moms during this most ritual of events that should be shared with a Mom. I laughed at the ridiculousness of some brides who spent more on their dress than I did on my first car.  I saw brides give in to others and I saw some brides dig their figurative heels in and do what they wanted.

Yet after about 10 episodes, I started really watching the consultants. These ladies, and one man, are more than just selling dresses. They have perfected the skill of selling an experience. What I discovered was that most of the brides had no idea what they wanted, and somehow these dress consultants were able to find the perfect dress, out of 1000s in the store, for almost each bride. They were also skillful therapist as some how they were able to see that some brides struggled with their entourage, struggled with commitment, or struggled with their body image. At the very end the consultants do something that I just loved. They call it “jack them up”. This is when the consultants almost have a bride convinced on a certain dress and they add a veil, earrings, necklace, and put the bride’s hair up-all while the bride’s eyes are closed. When the bride opens her eyes, more times than not, she sees the beauty that she is, and finally she says “yes to the dress.”

As I watched episode and episode of this, I started thinking about us and our work at school.  How often are we like the consultants on Say Yes to the Dress. We have to navigate an entourage of folks telling us what we should do or what we need to be doing. We know, probably better than others, what our students need or what they want. We also have to spend an enormous amount of time helping our students see in themselves something they don’t yet see or believe. I keep going back to the moment when the bride is “jacked up” and she opens her eyes and she believes she is the most beautiful bride….she is CONFIDENT in that decision.

How often do we “jack up” our students? Do you make your students want what you’re giving them? Are you giving them content as well as the confidence to do something with that knowledge? Because just like those dress consultants, we are selling a feeling as well. That feeling of confidence will help the most uninspired student come to life. So I challenge you today….who are you saying yes to?  

Flip to the other side of the card

Unless you live under a rock, you know that this past weekend was Mother’s Day. In all honesty, the last two Mother’s Days have not been fun. I’ve smiled and hugged my boys and pretended to be happy. I even got excited when they purchased me an Air Fryer as a gift this year.  (I’m using it for the first time tonight…so hang on, I’ll let you know how it goes).   I’ve tried to put on a pretty face for Mother’s Day, but all I really want is a phone call to heaven.  I miss my Mom more than I can say and Mother’s Day is a reminder that she is no longer here. It is just another day of seeing moms and daughters together and feeling the pain of what I miss so desperately.  Now, I know that she is with me in my heart and I know I can talk with her anytime….but it still hurts that I don’t get to hug her neck, listen to her advice, or listen to her complain about my siblings making me feel like I’m her favorite. I avoid TV, I stay off all social media, and I beg my people not to take me out to eat (which I never win).  You see Mother’s Day is hard. It is a reminder of what I have lost and it sometimes is more than I can bear to stand.

Today, a student was acting out. He was having a bad day---and it really is unusual. As I brain stormed with the teacher, we realized that this student, who is in foster care, was feeling the same way I felt yesterday. He misses his mom.  So I took him to my office and we talked and I must admit we cried together. We made a little notecard of all the things that make him sad….missing his brother’s birthday, missing his mom, a classmate that yells at him….and then we made a list on the other side of the notecard of the things that make him happy……and that list was so very long.... Grilled cheese sandwiches, Monster University, getting his monthly visit with his mom and brother, his teacher, math, and getting to play football next year.  That list of things that made him happy just kept growing. I told him that every time he felt sad, to turn over the card and read about all the things that make him happy and pretty soon the things that make him sad will not feel so bad.

As I walked him back to class, I realized that I can give great advice, but I sure don’t listen to it myself. While the pain of not having my mother on Mother’s Day is bad (and I don’t even want to talk about Father’s Day), I have so much that is good.  SO MUCH THAT IS GOOD!  Right before I turned to go into my office, I was stopped by a staff member with a complaint. Now I try to be open to listen to everything, but I found myself asking that staff member “what makes you happy here?”  You see it is easy to focus on the bad. It is easy to talk about all the things that are wrong, that are upsetting to you, or that need immediate attention, but do you stop and focus on how far we’ve come or how many things you have around you that make you happy?

You see, if I had done what I wanted to do yesterday-get under the covers and cry all day- then I would have missed out on an amazing church service. I would have missed out on a fantastic meal at one of my favorite downtown restaurants. I would have missed out on watching Clemson baseball with my people and having them laugh at my intensity. I would have missed out on afternoon ice cream at Rocky Moos (and if you have been there you need to put it on your “things that make you happy” list). Dang, I would have even missed out on reading new recipes to try in my Air Fryer.

Being bogged down in what is wrong makes us miss what is right. And don’t we have so much here that is right?  I certainly will never be one to avoid fixing the things that are wrong. We, like everyone else, have things to work on, but I focus on the things that are right. I focus on what we’ve accomplished.  I focus on the things that make me happy. Because that list is too long to even write on a notecard.

I have and will continue to speak about #maymatters. Because it does. What we are doing with our students right now sets the stage for the next two months for them. Every extra push of learning sets them up for continued success. It is difficult work. It is hard. And it is easy to focus on how busy we are, and how much we have to do……..or we could focus on the other side of the card…….what makes us happy? 

So I beg of you for how many ever days we have left of this school year to flip to the other side of the card.

Perfect Teachers

I had a tour last week with a very weepy new kindergarten Mom. In the fall, her daughter will be at “big school” (her words) for the first time. Her daughter has attended a 2 day a week Mommy’s Day out, has never spent one night away from her Mom, and has some health concerns. At one point, I grabbed her hands and I looked her in her eyes and I told her that we understand that parents give us their most precious gifts every single day and that is a trust that we don’t take lightly.  In fact, we take that very seriously. I told her that, as a parent myself, trusting others would take care of my children the way I would, was even hard for me-and I am an educator. In fact, the first time Rosebro1 went to kindergarten here at JBE, I cried…and I was in the building all day.  How must it feel to the parent who drops their child off and drives away for the first time? 

I went on to tell that mom of some of our security and supervision policies. I explained fire drills and lock down drills. I explained our policy of handling discipline but focusing mainly on what students do right. I told her about our teaching pedagogy (because as you would know….her child is already gifted). I explained about field trips, our full-time school nurse, and our guidance counselor who is always there to support students with anxiety and separation issues. I told her about our authorized pick up list and our precautions in car line. 

Then, I told her the real truth. That even with all those measures that we practice and we preach and we go over in every faculty meeting, we will at some point in her daughter’s six years here, fail her. It may be that I forget to call her name on the loud speaker when she earned recognition. Her teacher may forget a parent conference or an email may go unanswered. I told her that another student will probably say something unkind to her daughter and the teacher will not notice. I told her that she may get served the wrong meal in the cafeteria. I told her that our teachers are human beings. I told her of something that I had done recently that was simply a mistake. It hurt a child’s feelings. I told her what I did to make it right. I told her we do all we can to avoid them, but I wasn’t going to lie to her and tell her that anyone in this building was perfect.

She started crying more.  I thought I had really made a mistake. Then she told me about dropping her daughter on her head when she was just a few months old.  Her crying turned to laughter as I detailed the story of me breaking Rosebro1’s nose when he was 8 months old or the time I was helping Rosebro2 after a bee sting and ended up slamming his hand in the car door. After a few minutes, she stopped her crying/laughing and asked for a registration card. She said she was not going home to think about it because I was the first principal who was honest with her. She said, “I am not a perfect parent. How can I expect a perfect teacher?’  I reminded her that here at JBE she will come close to having some perfect teachers-albeit nowhere near a perfect principal- but that any mistake a teacher makes is NEVER done to harm a student.

You see this week isn’t Perfect Teacher Appreciation Week. It is simply Teacher Appreciation Week. But there is nothing simple in terms of appreciating a teacher. My first-year teaching, I had an IEP meeting with a parent and discussed a child that didn’t belong to the parent.  Now, I am unsure why the mom didn’t stop me when I kept referring to her son, Christopher, as Demarcus, but I had the entire IEP meeting- Cognitive, testing scores-the whole works with the wrong parent.  Just imagine how that went when upon her way out the door, my principal asked me why Christopher’s mom was here for a meeting and I realized what I had done.  I made a mistake.  I am less than perfect, but I beat myself up about that for years. To this day, I probably make parents feel awkward the number of times I use their student’s name in a meeting. I am paranoid of making the same mistake twice. I learned from that mistake. I learn from the ones I make now. I continue to grow.

You will never be a perfect teacher. AND that is okay. You are appreciated anyway.  I learned after my Demarcus/Christopher debacle that no one wanted to hear my pity party. My principal was done talking to me about it the day it happened and that is when I became a reflective teacher.  Greatness always starts with reflection. In fact, a pity party helps self-doubt creep in-and we need confidence to do this job.

I tell you all this today to say even with your imperfections, even with your mistakes, even with your self doubts, you are appreciated. You are given the greatest trust by our parents and 99% of the time you do it flawlessly. And some of those 1%’s are big, terrible, and sometimes plain dumb mistakes, but you’re still appreciated.

You are appreciated for the hard work you do each day in your class, for every parent phone call afterschool, every meeting afterschool-RTI, IEP, Parent meetings, committee meetings, for every difficult student you’ve learned to love, for every field trip, every assembly, every program, every evening you’ve graded papers or worked on lesson plans, for every moment you took away from your own family to attend to a student or our school, for every early morning duty, and car duty in the pouring rain, snow or temps below 20, for every sleepless night worried about school, and for every minute during those summer months working on school.  You. Are. Appreciated.  

Our PTSO, and we are lucky to have them, will spoil you this week as your waistband expands after every delicious meal, breakfast, and treat prepared for you. Duty free lunch-and if you're not a teacher you just can't understand- is so very rewarding. The little gifts, notes, hugs, pictures drawn are heartfelt. But I hold your hands, look you in the eye and tell you the truth---you are appreciated.