So I'm on vacation actually, but during a couple of runs around town I've thought a lot about this topic due to some recent events. Hopefully this will turn out alright as I'm using my phone to write this. I think if you were to ask me what's the greatest skill I want my students to gain, it is to become resilient. For my students, I'm their first experience in an AP level course and most of them are completely out of their element when they first arrive. A lot of my students have never gotten lower than an A on any assignment and all of the sudden they're getting a D or worse on their first quiz or test. Many of them are floored and not sure where to turn, and I talk them through the steps they need to take to improve but tell them they're going to have to reflect upon what they're currently doing and figure out how they'll get better. That self reflection is key. I wish I could just say day 1 you'll all need to start doing this and everyone would follow suit. But that self reflection doesn't usually come without some sort of struggle or obstacle first. This skill is key because learning continues after one steps outside of the classroom. In retrospect I wish someone had pushed this skill harder to me as a kid. For most of high school, college, and the rest of my twenties things came relatively easy and I could always get by with fairly minimal effort being put in whether that was with school, sports, work, or relationships. Well, that didn't really leave me happy with where my life was headed. Around the time I decided to go back to school to get my teaching certifications, I was fired from my coaching job at the college I worked at (a blessing in disguise really). But what really caused me to reevaluate myself wasn't the firing, it was a few weeks later finding my mother dead in her condo. My mother had long struggled with several issues and had taken her life 5 years ago this past May. Its something I rarely bring up, but after all the craziness slowed down after it happened, I thought a lot in particular about two quotes my mother shared with me. The first, a tribute to the Hanna Barbera cartoons I loved as a kid and the favorite quote of yogi bear being "smarter than the average bear." My mom told me and my brothers that there were a lot of average bears in the world and that we were smarter than those average bears and needed to make sure we did something with that. The other was a quote by Ralph waldo Emerson, "make the most of yourself for that is all there is of you." I hadn't been doing either of those things, and it was time to change that. A lot's changed in those 5 years, I'm now married, have kids, got a teaching job, earned my masters, and switched up to a high school where I couldn't be happier working. But I had to learn to take this tragedy and move past it while making sure I took the lessons I needed from it. I value life more now than I did, and try to make the most out of all things in front of me.
What got all of these thoughts in my head was the recent passing of one of my high school teammates and friends this past week. Ricky was one of the best athletes I've had the privilege of playing with and one of the nicest and most sincere person you could know too. Many of us struggle to understand why he was taken from us all at such a young age. I know I'll never know and in truth am not meant to understand why. But I should learn and reflect from his passing. Ricky was a man who always worked hard, whether it be at soccer, his computer work, even picking up lacrosse and becoming an all conference player in one year. And despite how great he was, he was always humble, quick to share credit with his teammates. So while I work to live day in and day out by those words of Emerson my mom shared with me, to truly honor Ricky, I'll work hard, be humble, and be great. That's what he did and who he was. And hopefully I can pass a bit of that on to my kids and students too.
Thanks for reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment