We work hard and we want to be our best every day. In doing so, it seems that it is often times easier to remember our failures, the times we fell short and the moments when we were not at our best. What we forget is that in those hard times, we learn the most. Right now, I am in a season of flux. I am questioning some of the practices that we used to think were best. I am opening my mind to new ways of thinking about teaching and learning. I am forcing myself to look honestly at our data and pinpoint areas where we can grow, where I can grow. What I love about this is that as I force myself to be vulnerable, I am allowing myself to grow. It’s messy, it’s hard, it’s stressful. But, what I’m not doing is beating myself up about it. Just because I want to grow, just because I see that I can be better doesn’t make me lose one second of sleep or feel anxious about coming to school each day. In fact, it energizes me. So, I ask you this, how do you look at hard moments? Do you beat yourself up and say you’re not good at your job and feel like a failure; do you listen to the critics? Or, do you roll up your sleeves and dig in? Do not allow YOURSELF to be your toughest critic. Do not allow yourself to get in the way of your own growth. Maybe you need to change what you’re doing in your classroom, so what? Maybe you need to rethink the way to teach reading, so what? We’re on a journey with no destination. When we feel like we’re arrived that means we’ve stopped learning! The best thing to remember is that we’re all in this together. We’re all in the muck and the mess! In the words of Theodore Roosevelt, “there is no effort without error and shortcoming…”! Keep doing the work, my friends! “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
― Theodore Roosevelt
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