"Forget not to be patient with yourself. God is fully aware that you and I are not perfect. Let me add, God is also fully aware that the people you think are perfect, are not. And yet, we spend so much time and energy comparing ourselves to others --- usually comparing our weaknesses to their strengths. This drives us to create expectations for ourselves that are impossible to meet. As a result, we never celebrate our good efforts because they seem to be less than what someones else does. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. It is wonderful that you have strengths and it is part of your mortal experience that you do have weaknesses. God wants to help us to eventually turn all our weaknesses into strengths, but He knows that this is a long term goal. It's okay that you are not quite there yet. Keep working on it. BUT stop punishing yourself."
"In the meantime, be thankful for all the small successes. Like the Forget-me-Nots, these successes may seem tiny to you, and they may go unnoticed by others. But God notices them, and they are not small to Him."
"If we spend our days waiting for fabulous roses, we could miss the beauty and wonder of the tiny Forget-me-Nots that are all around us. This is not to say that we should abandon hope or temper our goals. Never stop striving for the best that is within you. Never stop hoping for all of the righteous desires of your heart. But do not close your eyes and hearts to the simple and elegant beauties of each day's ordinary moments, that make up a rich, well-lived life."
A final note to this post:
I know that I shouldn't even go here again, but I also know it won't leave my mind until I get all of this out. I'm sure this won't make sense to most of you, so you can stop reading right about now if you'd like, but this is therapeutic for me right now…so here I go.
I don't talk about my class, specific students, my relationship with those students, or upload photos of them for obvious reasons on my blog. However, I was talking with a friend about the snide remark that was made on my blog earlier and I wanted to make something very clear to that person and anyone else who thinks I may not be fit to be a teacher, whether for my grammatical error(s) or any other reason they might have. I love those kids. Am I a perfect teacher? Of course not. I have more than my fair share of weaknesses. But do I try? You better believe it. I work 12 hour days Monday-Friday AND through the weekend so that I can be prepared and capable of being the teacher and role model that they need me to be. I find my role as their teacher to be of the upmost importance. I am with them more hours a day than their own parents. I recognize the enormous amount of influence I can have in their lives, for good or bad and I do everything I can to be a positive influence and to show my love for them and my desire for their success.
I spend hours each day thinking of ways to motivate, brainstorming new methods to teach concepts, writing personal notes to each student, and praying for those children and to know how to best help them. So I apologize if I did not use the "me, I" rule correctly on MY BLOG, but please do not ever assume that I fall short as a teacher because of what I say on MY BLOG (are you catching my drift yet?). I have cried tears of frustration because I have children who are suffering and who I know I have been entrusted with. Clearly, I already have plenty of other things to worry about that do not include your sassy remarks or editing my blog posts for errors.
What I am saying to you, "anonymous," and to anyone else who questions my abilities to teach, is to please not assume anything about me. I never talk about my actual teaching or the experiences I have in the classroom on this blog for a reason, so please don't act as though you have any idea about my life in that regard. You do not know me. You have never seen me with my students. You have never seen me teach.
I'm not writing this to say "Look at me… I ROCK as a teacher. I'm AMAZING!" I'm writing this because most days I come home and feel anything BUT amazing. I feel frustrated and feel like I fall short every day. I literally have to tell myself that I really am doing my best and that teaching is just hard sometimes. Most of what makes being a teacher difficult, isn't the actual teaching of content. It is constantly being reminded that I am in charge of 27 little souls who are young, impressionable, and dealing with hard things in life; I'm the one who is supposed to help them, love them, and encourage them. Can you see why that might get a little stressful at times? Anonymous, have you ever taught and cared for that many children? If not, please don't make rude comments to me about it. If so, then you should know some of what I'm feeling and have the decency to not try to bring me down.
So, I apologize for this final post on it, but I cannot explain how frustrating it is to me to feel as though I am being judged in regards to my ability to do something that I put so much time and thought into.
President Uchtdorf's message was just what I needed to hear. Of course I'm not the perfect teacher OR person. Let's be real here...I will never be. But I am trying. And what I don't need, is people publicly, and yet anonymously, trying to bring me down.
Okay, I'm done. Whew.
7 comments:
All I ever did was student teach since I was almost 9 months pregnant with Kyle by the time I finished, but that short experience was enough to show me how hard it is to be a teacher. You don't understand until you are in that spot. Since I taught in a junior high I had over 100 students to teach, entertain, worry over, sympathize and laugh with.
I graduated with an English teaching degree, so naturally grammatical errors often (not always) stick out to me. Sometimes I point them out to people because I see it as a teaching experience, and other times I don't. I know I make errors all the time too. For someone to make rude comments tells me they are struggling with their own confidence. Yes, Anonymous, THEIR and not THEY'RE or THERE confidence. (Just trying to make light of the situation). :)
Clearly, our Savior was the only perfect teacher.
As someone that's has seen you teach and worked with you very closely I want you to know you are an amazing teacher! The most important thing a teacher can do is love those kids and build them up. I would bet this "anonymous" could not necessialy tell you what grammar rule was taught by which teacher, or but I would hope they can remember a teacher who cared and had passion for what they did. If they can not them how sad for them to never have that kind of role model in their life. Please do not stress, as I would tell one of my 6th graders, this person obviously needs to lift themself up by putting you down. How very sad for them. You are exactly what those kids need, don't ever think different. Teaching is such a hard job, unless you do it, you'll never know.
Tiff
Teaching is hard, people who don't do it wont ever get it. I'm sure you do an amazing job and you're only going to get better and feel more comfortable with it. Simply stated anonymous is just jealous cuz you are cute, JD is cute and anonymous isn't cute:)
how rude! I don't think anyone should ever judge a teacher- especially what she does in her OWN time- unless they have done the job and know how physically and emotionally draining it is. Last year I surprised myself my even remembering my own name by the end of the day. you are a great teacher, and that anonymous person probably really sucks at being a human being. :)
I just wanted to say I understand how you feel! I recently had to deal with a similar issue and feelings when some people made some comments that questioned my choices as a mother. I cried and cried about it because these people made me feel like I was being judged as a mom, the most important and dear to my heart job I feel I will ever have! After several people told me not to listen to those people and that I was doing a fabulous job as a mother (not perfect, but pretty darn good!)I started to feel much better. So I'd just like to say that thinking back to the year or so that I knew you back in the beginning years of college, I know you are an amazing teacher to these 6th graders! You are outgoing and funny and smart and most importantly, you care so much about your job and these kids. To me, that's the best kind of teacher there is!
I also want to add that anyone who claims they never make a grammar mistake is a liar! Every single person makes mistakes in their grammar every single day! I remember in a linguistics class one of our assignments was to write down some of the mistakes we heard throughout the day, and we all thought it would be really hard, but it was so easy! Once you listen for it, you realize that mistakes are made by everyone all the time! In both speech and writing. So don't pay any attention to this anonymous person, because if they think that one little grammar mistake is so important, they are obviously not very educated themselves!!!
So... you don't know me, but i grew up with your husband so it's fun to look at your blog and see where life has taken you guys. I had a similar experience this week. I teach high school math and had parent teacher conferences this past week. I had 2 parents belittle me and make me feel like such crap! Teaching is hard work!!!! You care so much for these students that you may know better than their own parents do. People have NO CLUE what it's like to teach. What you're doing is what very few people can do, and even fewer have the passion and desire to do it. What keeps us teachers going isn't a worldly reward. Don't let anyone bring you down. What I've read on your blog, I can tell you are a very caring teacher/person. KEEP WORKING HARD! We have lives to save and change!
Love,
Denise Rigby
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