The Night Before School Starts

I love the night before school starts. 

I love that a whole year of possibilities lies ahead.

There will be new students, who are delightful in their individuality. There never were two persons exactly alike, and by teaching, I get to see a microcosm of developing humanity.

There will be new content challenges, which will make me a better teacher because I will have to solve new problems and figure out how to help my students develop their language skills, both in breadth and depth, in the best possible and most fun way.

There will be new challenging students, whom I may come to dread seeing every day, but who will ultimately make me a better teacher because I will learn and develop strategies for dealing with difficult behaviors.

There will be new victories, where I will keep working with a student who A), doesn't like me or the class, B), isn't motivated to learn at all, or C), is motivated and works hard, but just can't seem to keep up with his or her classmates. We will struggle along for a few months, and then, sometimes slowly and sometimes seemingly overnight, things will change. A joke or a comment will reveal that we've finally made a connection; a student will start putting effort in and will see positive results; or suddenly things will click and I will start realizing that a student's work is much higher-quality than it was before (sometimes this arouses suspicions of cheating, so I always pay attention to what they are able to do in front of me without help, and when it turns out that things really have finally clicked, it is the best feeling).

There will be growth, where a student will present in front of the class, write a paper, have a spontaneous conversation with a classmate, read an article, or comprehend a video, and I will be amazed and proud at what they are able to do in Spanish. 

There will be clean whiteboards, which will be written on erased countless times, and new school supplies, which will slowly get used up and fade as the school year goes on.

There will be new strategies to try, some of which will work wonderfully to increase student learning or engagement, some of which will need to be adjusted a few times, because they show promise but aren't working quite yet, and some will be tried and then dropped with no plans to try again next year. 

There are always new coworkers, some of whom will join my circle of friends and become sounding boards, outlets for venting, cheerleaders, or even someone I can go to in tears.

There will also be a lot of difficult things. There will be rebellious, hateful, and rude students. There will be ridiculous, bureaucratic requirements delivered from the school district and the legislature, which will take up hours of my time and have little to no impact on student learning. There will be days where classes will drag on, where my students stare at me dully and never seem to become interested, where I will realize, in the middle of an activity, that it's not working AT ALL, but I have no backup plan, and my attempts at improvisation will fall short. There will be times when I come down harshly on a student and realize I should have been more patient, and I will have to apologize, and other times when I will realize I should have addressed a particular behavior and didn't, and will stay awake at night thinking about how to handle it if it comes up again. There may be some calls to CPS. There will be days where I cry and days where I decide I have to quit teaching (I usually have about one per month).

However, I will keep coming back, and things will get better, or even if they don't, I will figure out a way to deal with it. I think that the most successful and long-lasting teachers have a few things in common. One is a genuine desire to help students, another is the ability to wear rose-colored glasses. To not wear down, you have to always be looking on the bright side, always think that problems can be solved, always come back ready to do better tomorrow, always hold out hope that that one student WILL learn, that you are making a difference, that that kid will, whatever the reason behind their misbehavior, begin to treat the people around them better - you just have to figure out a way to make it work. If I got to a point where I were not able to focus on the good, and find ways to minimize the bad, I would have to find a different job. Like any job where you're dealing with humanity, there's a lot of bad, places where our fallen natures are evident. It's not that teachers refuse to see reality (if we didn't, we couldn't teach students where they are at); I think that it's that teachers also are always seeking the potential good and ways to help their students arrive at where they could be.

But also, like any job where you're dealing with humanity, you also get to see all the good, the places where the image of God is found in humanity, via altruism, kindness, humor, growth and learning, friendship, connection, courage, determination, perseverance, honesty, and creativity.

It's those things I look forward to seeing throughout the year, and I'm not thinking about the bad yet, which is why I love the night before school.

Growing a Growth Mindset

Back in December, Ian asked me a question: "What do you feel like you learned this last year?"

I didn't have to think about it long; there was a consistent theme running throughout the last year (or even year and a half) of my life. I blogged about this in November of 2017, when I wrote about what had been my most difficult class period at the beginning of the school year, and how through consistency and persistence and a lot of prayer and grace, it was transformed into one of my favorite classes. Having a growth mindset, and believing that goals can be attained, has been a relatively new perspective for me to take (and continue to take) over the last year.

I have always been tempted to give up things; I tend focus on the process over the results. While emphasizing one over the other is probably not healthy for anyone, my tendency to focus mostly on the process meant that I wasted a lot of time, experienced a lot of false starts, and was left feeling a sense of frustration and powerlessness over my own life. Whether a goal was related to parenting, teaching, cleaning, writing, planning, organizing, or even awkward conversations in relationships, I would back down at any point where I felt uncomfortable (physically, spiritually, emotionally, etc.), became bored, lacked inspiration (fun is probably my biggest motivator), or experienced pain or setbacks. Again, this led to a lot of stops and starts when it came to friendships, parenting goals, teaching goals, writing, and even things like cleaning my house.

So, the word that came to mind when Ian asked me what I had learned was push. The theme for this year has been sticking with things even when they are difficult. Whether dealing with difficult students individually, managing an entire classroom of difficult behaviors, reaching my own personal goals (reading the Bible, writing, learning to play a new song on the piano), or even exercising, I have learned that setbacks, failures, challenges, fear, and weakness are not reasons to give up. My own complacency and fear have been giving way over the last year or so to more of a growth mindset: add the word "yet" to anything that you think you can't do, and if it's important to you, work hard at making it happen.

Most importantly, I learned that for someone like me, to whom perseverance doesn't always come naturally, there are specific ways I can increase my likelihood of persevering at perseverance.

For one, I learned to get better at seeking accountability. Although I am an introvert, socializing has always been a motivator, plus I hate letting people down. So I joined a gym and a kickboxing class and met up with friends to walk. Obviously, the accountability related my job was simply the fact that I like doing my job well AND I didn't want to get fired. When I wanted to grow professionally, I submitted presentation proposals and volunteered for specific responsibilities at my school. Whether or or not we were doing Bible study, we had particular friends with whom we ate dinner almost every Thursday evening, simply because they were our friends. The study was optional, but we were committed to having dinner and enjoying each other's company. Planning ahead of time to do things with certain people helped me stick to my goals, and an unexpected bonus that was probably the most rewarding was that my friendships deepened as a result. (It seems so obvious now when I write it.)

Another thing I learned to do was turn off my constantly-objecting self-talk. I tend to process internally, so there are myriad thoughts swirling around in my mind at one time. I found it was amazing what I could accomplish when I refused to listen the whining, complaining, or lazy parts of my brain. In order to do this, I often had to replace the questions with more motivating self-talk, or even try to trick myself ("if you do three more squats, you can stop... okay, three more... okay, now just try three more..."). Overthinking, for me, was leading to under-doing, and I was tired of it.

I was truly proud of some of the things I accomplished or the positive results that came to me. I was learning to do things that weren't natural. As a teacher, I got much better at consistency and issuing consequences, and my most difficult classes either became my favorite classes or plunged me into a depth of strength that I didn't know was there. When I worked out, I discovered that pushing my muscles harder and experiencing pain meant a blissful rush of endorphins and peaceful relaxation at the end. Plus, every week I was able to move more, lift more, reach a higher number of reps. As a friend, I discovered that time together and commitment to meeting with others meant that my friendships were deeper than they had been in years. Getting to know people can be awkward and there are strained moments, but when you find someone who seems like your kind of person, planning regular times with those people and doing things with them leads to developing friendships. Making friendships in high school was easy for me, and as some friends moved away or we got busy with life, I let some of those friendships slip, which was a mistake on my part. Going back to working at friendships has given me people in my life with whom I can relate, share feelings, discuss struggles, ask for for advice, get help, give help, and just feel valued as a human being.

Eventually, it all becomes whatever is the opposite of a vicious cycle (A Happy Cycle? A Self-Rewarding Cycle?). After accountability and perseverance have done their work and you see the rewards of pushing through, it becomes easier to push the next time because rather than thinking only of the "should," or visualizing an imaginary end in sight, you have actual positive memories of the last time that you succeeded because you didn't let yourself quit. Each new success, even small ones, builds up to become reasons you should keep going next time you're facing a challenge. Self-discipline is so difficult, but building up positive memories of results has become a huge motivator in my own life.

So, even though my lazy side dislikes challenges, ultimately I am thankful that God brings these challenges into my life. It would be so much easier to never have to grow, to never be stretched out by life and experience the pain of dealing with difficulties. Yet my biggest personal growth and the achievements of which I am most proud were won through overcoming the biggest challenges. It can hurt to grow, but there is a certain joy at new heights that isn't experienced any other way.