Recently while scrolling through Facebook I saw a family
being celebrated for dropping all mainstream American notions about living well
to travel the world in a van turned home.
Praise was abundant for this family.
How brave! How bold! How non-conformist! The implication on some level was that the
rest of us got it wrong and that we should be reflective and maybe even
regretful at our own complacency. But as
I read the article, though proud of any family who can truly live out their
values, all I could think about was all the people who had to be okay with a
more mundane life in order for their dream to be achieved - In the most obvious sense, the guy (or gal)
who fills the gas tanks that run underground so they could pump the fuel needed
for their sense of adventure… in less obvious ways the people who built the
roads they drove on or sold the food they consumed on their nomadic trek. We can’t all toss caution to the wind. Our lives are too carefully intertwined for
this to happen.
This story
seems a fitting way to start off a blog I have been contemplating since early
October after watching Scholastic’s Ambassador of Librarians, John Schumacher,
speak to local teachers at the annual TAWL conference. As I sat listening to this dynamic man wax
poetic about the joy of books and his job, I was filled with this overwhelming
sense of comfort and satisfaction realizing for the first time in years that I
had no desire to do what he does. While
becoming a professional PD expert had been my passion for quite some time, this
year filled me with such pride and fulfillment that I had no desire to do
anything other than what I am doing – teaching 6th graders to read,
write, and speak better than they did before our time together. I was no longer looking for any escape from
teaching. I was no longer counting down
the days to the weekend.
So what
makes this year different? Quite simply
it is that I have experienced ongoing tangible success for the first time in a
long time. While my job as an
intervention teacher surrounded me with signs of failure – kids who felt
trapped in a program that wasn’t working for them, stagnant test scores, and
faces I loved seeing but whose presence alone told them and me that we hadn’t
accomplished our goals - this year has been marked with signs of success in the form of kids leaping from book
to book, emails from parents thanking me for helping their child fall in love
with reading, and beaming faces as students saw charts of their reading growth
after years of being told too often of their deficits. The reasons for this year’s successes
probably deserve their own post and might only be interesting to teachers, but
let it suffice to say that I didn’t realize how much I didn’t like my job until
I started loving it. I didn’t know work
could feel so good. I didn't know how beaten down I had felt by failure.
As I sat
there listening to the librarian ambassador it occurred to me how very important
success is to happiness. When I am
unhappy at work it is because I feel like I am failing at my job. When I am overwhelmed with parenting, it is
because I feel like I am not what my children need. When I feel worst as a spouse, it is when I
have disappointed my husband and not when he has disappointed me. Success makes me happy. Success makes me feel good. Success gives me the energy it takes to get
up and keep going.
I had two
very important aha’s that morning. The
first was about how crucial it is that we create opportunities for those we
care about to feel and note success.
There has been a lot said about the power of failure. I would argue that this is only true if is
sandwiched in lots of opportunities for success. I realized that my biggest fear for my children (both my own and of the student kind) is
not that they won’t get to grow up to do something that they love. It is that they won’t get to grow up and do
something that they are good at. Failure
is demeaning. Pride in work makes you
hold your head high with your shoulders back as you stride in confidence. You could replace work with any number of endeavors we take on. There is simply no high like the buzz of success.
My other
aha came in the realization that the most revered jobs are not possible without
the hard work done in less appreciated or esteemed jobs. Mr. Schu told us that warm, safe and loved
starts in the office. I couldn’t help
but think of how incredibly true that is of the women whose smiling faces fill our school office. These successful women run our school. It’s unfortunate that we see jobs in a
hierarchy tied to pay when a spider web of interconnectedness and equal
importance would be a better metaphor. No
one can be successful alone. Whereas I
used to crave a position as a teacher educator, I realized that without
teachers in classrooms teaching rooms full of kids, the need for a PD expert
falls completely flat. Every job
matters. Success at any point in system
leads to greater success in the whole system.
So, my wish for you this New Year
is not that you live your adventure as much as it is that you find or recognize
your very important place in this web.
That you spin and hold your line well. That you feel successful more often than you don't in your relationships, commitments, and industry. And that you go home at night and crawl into bed with a smile on your
face and the sense of pride that can only come with feeling that you matter and
that you are good enough no matter how big or small your adventure is.
