If you're just joining in on this series, here's what's going on:
I'm using the quotes as a basis for reflection on a shift in my professional journey. You see, for 12 years I was an elementary music teacher and now I've found myself to be an assistant principal. In a time that I anticipate to be filled with much personal and professional growth, I'd like to be sure and carve out some purposeful reflection time. As an educator, I've personally benefited from purposeful reflection through blogging and I can only imagine that I'll still benefit from reflective blogging as a leader in education.
My goal is to spend some time in each post writing about the quote, about the author of the quote (when possible), and about how I see the quote and/or the background image of the quote applying to my day-to-day world.
As a gal who always credits a source, I'd like to give a shout out to a dear friend, Kara Lowery, for coming up with the name of the series. Kara is a fabulous special education teacher who specializes in working with children who have autism. Not only is she a gifted teacher; she's also terrifically punny.
Read on; enjoy!
MIND. BLOWN.
As a direct link to this quote, my thoughts about Truman Capote being a mafia man were, in fact, WRONG, and my failure of knowing his identity gave the success of learning that he was best friends with Harper Lee and even better success flavor! BOOM.
It's nearly the middle of the second week of school, and I've already run out of finger and toe digits trying to count the number of moments I wish I had back to do better. For those of you who have been following along in this blog, I'm SO GLAD that I practiced making pie crusts. There have been some moments where I feel I have failed--like the time I called 911 (ugh), the time I didn't call a parent back (ugh ugh), the time I didn't know an answer to a question--okay, okay...the MANY times I didn't know an answer to a question (ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh); HOWEVER, there have been times when I've gotten it right--like the many days when the cafeteria was sparkling clean at the end of my duty time (BOOM), the day I talked with a student and made him visibly relax as we worked through a challenge (BOOM BOOM), the day I worked until 6:30 and was having so much fun I didn't even realize what time it was (BOOM BOOM BOOM), the days that I've gotten to be in classrooms and watch the absolute magic of the teachers on my campus (BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM).
Failure is happening. Failure is going to happen.
Success is happening. Success is going to keep on happening.
I'm excited about the professional growth in the year to come, and I know that the success of that growth will be so wonderful in comparison to that one day when I called 911.
P.S. While I've been writing this (before a morning meeting started), a district person walked up to me and asked how things were going. My response, "SO. GOOD! I LOVE my new school!!"