Day 37: Halfway There!

Simon walks up to me as I teach and hands me a note. I open it just to get him to go back to his seat. Inside is a list of all the people he's supposedly "smarter" than. I hold back a laugh as he walks happily back to his chair. Content to focus on the lesson now that he's delivered his message. 

Stories like this are almost a daily occurrence the past three weeks. If it's not Simon it's another student who's constantly letting me know that I make a difference, that feels comfortable sharing things with me and wants me to be proud of them. It fills my heart with joy that I may only be a Senior in college, yet I have 110 children that I couldn't imagine loving more if they were my own. (It probably helps that I get to send them back every day!) Now it hasn't all been a bed of roses. There's getting up at 5 am every morning. There's the six hours I spent on ten test questions. There's the grading, and the silent lunches, and the late nights lesson planning. But after three weeks of being in the trenches, I can say that it's been such an amazing experience. Becoming Ms. Woods may be a lot of work, but I wouldn't have it any other way. 

How can you make a difference in the lives of those around you today? 

Day 14: Free Falling

It took me all of 14 days (minus weekends, holidays, and three days of snow) to reach my tipping point and fail at teaching. Like, smack-down-the-middle, no-way-around-it fail. It sucked, a lot. In fact it still sucks, a lot. I also didn’t handle it very well. Instead of listening to what my supervising teacher said, I did the exact opposite. You see, my biggest failure today was not the epic figurative face plant in the classroom, it was that I was so caught up in my ways and looking like the hero, that I totally and completely forgot to listen to the people around me. I forgot to ask for help. When the task wasn’t something I wanted to do, I forgot that sometimes we do things, not because they make us feel great, but because that’s the way to our goals. That’s the way I, and the students I have the honor of teaching, learn. 

The past few weeks I have driven myself to the point of utter insanity not to fail and I can totally see why. Failure doesn’t feel so great. But I am also so thankful to have people around me who allow me to fall. I’m not saying that I am now the expert of failure, but I am saying that failure should be just as much a part of the process as those really big moments. It’s the failures, not the successes that show us who we really are. 

Where are you free falling in life? How can you use the supports around you to reach your full potential?