Reflection never ceases to startle me.
The ability to sit with a trusted and admired friend all the while sharing thoughts and ideas as commonly as if we were sharing food. After writing 4:59 my brain could not help but wonder how the future would turn out. In conversation with a great friend about 4:59, I began wondering just what good things came from that time frame - those moments imbedded in all the destruction and devastation.
I decided to be a little like Hansel and Gretel. Leave myself a trail to remember how to get back after I have finished my assessment of that year. Reflection is imperative to my learning, to my success, but I must also remember how to look to the future with my newfound insight - to not get stuck in the past.
What were those impactful, good moments which helped to define me today? This is my trail. Instead of using bread crumbs (seriously, they should have rethought that one), I'm opting for pebbles.
Pebble 1: Remember how excited you were when you accepted the interview for the 4th/5th special education position.
Pebble 2: Remember how amazing it felt to be offered the position and being able to accept with a single, profound word - Yes.
Pebble 3: Remember the overwhelming sensation of unlocking your room - the room that would house so many great memories of student learning and engagement, as well as professional and personal learning.
Pebble 4: Remember the welcoming faces and embraces of friends and colleagues you already knew from the year before.
Pebble 5: Remember the student who wouldn't speak to their general education classroom teacher because they were frightened, but instead opened up to you and expressed their fears because they felt safe enough.
Pebble 6: Remember the student who struggled on a daily basis to fit in, to be. The student who was brutally honest when he acted inappropriately and accepted the consequences without argument. The student who could honestly share his true feelings about his teacher with you because he knew you were a safe harbor. The student who saw you as an amazing teacher and suggested you might want to get one of those license things so you could become a "real teacher" (even though you already had one).
Pebble 7: Remember the deep conversations with Mrs. E about reading and writing. How you both strived to stretch student learning through modeled examples, readers and writers notebooks, and constant conversation through discussions and small group. How amazing those young minds were in conversation.
Pebble 8: Remember how much you stretched Mrs. H by the end of the year, just the same as she stretched you. That you both found you could rely on one another with faith and trust. How she didn't want to continue next year without you because she valued you so much.
Pebble 9: Remember the words Mr. H wrote as he expressed how you reinstated his love and passion for teaching - how you reminded him to look at each child for who they were instead of as another blob in the conglomerate of a classroom of 26 students.
Pebble 10: Remember the conversations and laughter that escaped as you talked with Mrs. D or Mrs. R about anything and everything. The way thoughts melded into one - anticipating each other. The way minds fed off of minds as new ideas were created in the very instant that another one was being discussed.
Pebble 11: Remember how much you have grown by being in the presence of these great people, this family whose sole goal is to learn, to grow, to "feed" those around them with the same passion and knowledge as they carry within themselves.
Pebble 12: Remember the supportive administration who guided and molded you as the year progressed. Showing you different paths and allowing you to determine the best way to travel. The willingness to listen without judgement. The desire to not only further the education of the students but also the staff's.
Pebble 13: Remember how your friends and colleagues valued your opinion, your thoughts, your ideas. How they listened as you shared (more like rambled incessantly) ideas you were passionate about.
Pebble 14: Remember you still have these great connections with these incredible people.
Through all of these pebbles what I really have found is a pearl: myself. Slowly, but surely said the tortoise to the hare.
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