Advancing the Vision 4-13-18

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do.”

—Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

Co Founder Apple Inc.

This quote was shared with the admins by Diana Hart, principal of the high school this week. She used this quote as a push to reconnect to her "why" and reminded us in the midst of the chaos to remember ours as well.

Instead of using this blog to "advance the vision" of instructional practices like I normally do, from now until the end of the year, I'll use it to simply celebrate moments I have witnessed from the week and spotlight thoughts and ideas that will hopefully reconnect you to your why.

This week, I took a few minutes to go outside when a large number of students were having recess. It was a beautiful day and several were playing foursquare.

For some reason it always makes me smile when I see our kids playing foursquare. I think it's awesome that we have a place on our playground designated for this game and that the kids take advantage of it. Kids naturally gravitate toward a state of joyful play. Why is it that I feel like my natural state is the opposite sometimes--that I have to WORK to find JOY?

Sometimes, when circumstances happen with students that are beyond my control, I tend to focus on the worry and responsibility we have of impacting our students' future --especially in light of the public school advocacy we have been a part of recently. Seeing kids play reminds me to stop and just find joy and purpose in what I am doing. Instead of worrying about the outcome all of the time, I need to release that worry and just step up to each day's challenges with the mindset of taking on what these experiences are teaching me in each moment--much like our students do as they show up for class.

So this week, instead of looking for overt responses, formative assessments, and the like, I'll be looking for those moments of inspiration--the ones that remind me of why I came into this profession in the first place. Do you need to reconnect to your joy? What's your why? I know you didn't get into teaching to help kids get a certain score on a test. Perhaps when we intentionally look for those moments of joy we will find more and more inspiration and the outcome will take care of itself.

To get started, remind yourself of the one word you came up with at the beginning of the year. Here's an article to remind you of the point in coming up with that one word. Last Friday many of us who rallied for public education wore red. This Friday, let's all plan on wearing our "one word" shirts to rally for why we do what we do and lean into our purpose and joy.