Jeez!!! This week… Phew…

It is funny to me how life works out. I have been working to create a website for myself for the past two weeks… and I literally accomplished nothing. For the last two days, I was planning how I would write my excuse because I had stated on Facebook I would have a website by the end of this week. There was absolutely no way this was going to happen. Just one more small failure I would need to overcome… but it got me down… really down. I was feeling pretty incompetent and not so worthy.

After again working on the website for an hour and a half this morning, I sent a desperate message to Rowan asking if he had an hour to help. He had “all day and was happy to help.” In about two hours, he had put together a pretty amazing website and so much weight just lifted from my shoulders.

This past week, I have been thinking two different thoughts. The first is, “Have friends that make you feel lighter.” I have had some amazing experiences with my friends this week and I am so grateful. Second, “We never really know the true extent of our own personal strength until we experience the lowest depths of our own personal struggles.” If you are struggling right now, you are also building strength. In a way, our struggles are what make us strong. They are a blessing in the same way friends who make you feel more light and free in this life.

if you are struggling, I hope you find the strength you need. If you can’t find the strength on your own, I hope you have a friend who can lift you up.

Procrastination and Perfectionism (Sorry, Mr. Weinmann)

First off, I know this might make a few people angry and a few might stop reading this post altogether, but “perfectionism” is not something someone suffers, it is just an excuse. Nothing more. Anybody who claims to be a “perfectionist” should also claim to be terrified to make mistakes, to loathe looking stupid and maybe not so keen on new experiences. A person who feels anxious and afraid most of the time and a person who does not really have a lot of faith in themselves. It is a wall we willingly build to try and hide our own fears and insecurities and lack of faith in our own abilities, but it is also a wall we build to try and contain those same fears and insecurities and lack of faith from contaminating the aspects of our lives that we do think we control and handle pretty well. (At least the parts of life we believe we can fake.)

This is personal knowledge. Hard-fought and hard-won personal knowledge. I am a perfectionist, and for most of my life I have believed it is a badge of honor to struggle mightily toward perfection. Even when ALL evidence points conclusively to the contrary.

It is my goal that every post I write has some sort of lesson or small bit of knowledge, at least I hope. But this post is more of an apology. I am sorry, Mr. Weinmann. Very, very sorry.

In 7th grade Social Studies, we were assigned our very first research paper. Mr. Weinmann was my teacher and he was awesome! I loved the way he taught and I looked forward to his classes. But a research paper? In 7th grade? Dang, that definitely took away some of the joy. We were given the rubric for the reasearch paper at the beginning of the semester and we had the whole semester to finish the final copy. We were to check in throughout the semester to make sure we were on track, but in the end, our final copy was our responsibility! It was also a HUGE percentage of our grade!

I did not do the research paper. I received an “A” in Mr. Weinmann’s Social Studies class.

I did not know how to do a research paper. Even if I tried, it would not be that good. If I could not get an “A” on something, what was the use of trying? What if Mr. Weinmann read my research paper and realized that I was not as smart as I pretended to be? What if it was not “perfect”? What if I tried and failed?

These are only some of the thoughts that caused me to procrastinate. But they were enough. More than enough in this case and so many others in my life. And the crazy thing about procrastination is that eventually it DOES give you an excuse. It did for me back then, and if I let it, it will for me now. Eventually, there was too much work!

In my 7th grade mind, and even today is some ways, I could not REALLY fail if I did not try. Because I was such a good student in every other way, I somehow convinced Mr. Weinmann that I did hand in a research paper and that he somehow had lost it.

Mr. Weinmann suffered because I was too scared to try. I was too scared to even begin. I have suffered every day since. I am sorry, Mr. Weinmann. I am very, very sorry.

 

An equation for change…

Yesterday, I was speaking with a young student of color at the school where I work and I was wondering why he didn’t feel very motivated to do much of the work in school. In speaking with this young man, I began to realize that he felt he was part of a system  that had very little to offer him, whether he tried or not. After all, he is a young black man in America; and to be honest, it is difficult to look around this country right now and see much hope for any, whatever tone your skin might radiate. I also realized that if it was not possible to get this young man motivated to succeed in his education, his doubts about his future are likely to become a reality.

This got me thinking. How is it possible to motivate young students in primary level education to care about their own education? This is all I could come up with…

If you want to change the system in which you play a part, you need power. If you want to have power in this world, you are going to need money (at least enough to support yourself) and influence. The amount of money and influence any person has in this world is usually directly correlated to the knowledge they possess. The best type of knowledge is wisdom; and wisdom allows us, as human beings, to wield power, money and influence in the ways possible that best benefit ourselves and humankind to the greatest extent. Wisdom, however, is wholly dependent on education. Education from school. Education from family. Education from friends and the education from the society in which we live.

Education is power. Power is change. Education is the key to any change in society.

I don’t know if I will be able to convince my young friend that education is important, but I will never stop trying, because he, and all my students, are important to me. Lastly, whatever wisdom I might possess in my lifetime, I want to use to create the change I most desire. Hope, for all.

Middle School Heartbreak

Junior high school is brutal. I was probably considered one of the “cool kids” in junior high, and there are things I probably never experienced. Today was payback. My heart was shattered to a million pieces, and all I could do was sit and watch.

Honors Language Arts. A brilliant student. Unique. Likes to discuss philosophy. Has Buddhist leanings. An assignment is given. Get into groups of two or three for “partner novel writing”. Nobody wants to be her partner. Tears. Red eyes. Tissues. Defiance. Shaking hands and red, puffy eyes overrule the “I’m good” answer. Students watch. Teacher glides around the room.

I sit in my chair, thinking. Judging those callous students. Yelling privately at the teacher, “HELP HER!”. I sit in the back of the room, just like junior high. Unable to console. Not even knowing where to begin to pick up the shattered pieces of two broken hearts.