Holy Moly

I have a few things that have been on my mind lately.  Thoughts, ideas, wonders that I carry with me throughout my day. I bounce them around in my head on my runs. Lately, I have one little ping pong ball that has been kerchunking its way through the right and left sides of my temples.

As a parent, I am trying to do the best I can with what I know.  What I know is this. Matt and I are in survival mode. One of us walks in the door while the other hurricanes their way out the door.  Our days start at 6 am and we do not stop until baths are over at 730 pm. There have been days that have worn me down to the bone, so much that I am not present with my family.  In retrospect, I've taken energy and money from my family in order to have that energy and money for work. Not many professionals can say that in order to do work, they pay for supplies and materials, maybe the self-employed do. Lately I haven't felt like a good parent. Lately, I've felt like I've failed the boys.  Lately, I've felt like I'm driving this bus blindfolded.

I'm also having similair conversations with the staff in the building I work in. Many are feeling like they aren't doing enough...Our low is getting lower...I feel like a bad teacher...I've failed them because...But what is education to teachers today?  What is parenting to those who parent?  Why can't we shift our paradigm and change the way our model for education and parenting? 

Our staff discussed this video by Sir Ken Robinson:

I watched it a few times.  Once as and educator, once as a parent and once as a 80 year-old kermuggin.  This shift can be done.  The only way it can be done is together- together as a building, as a district, as a community, and as a nation.

The only way I can feel like a better parent is if I bring my team together for a little pep talk.  An honest talk about what being in this family means. We are great thinkers, we will no longer put our heads down and be miserable. My parents taught me that hard work pays off in life.  Hard work in here pays off "out there".  I still believe that today.  But as an educator I know my definition of work needs to change.  As a parent my definition of work needs to change.  The work that was done in classrooms 60 years ago should not and cannot be the work we give kids today.  The work that was done in families should not and cannot be the work we do as a family today.    
 
A lot of times people don't know what they want until you show it to them.
Steve Jobs

 If life is a game, aren’t we on the same team? I mean really, right? I’m on your team, be on my team.

So what now?  Come together, collaborate, inquire, question.  Let our kids learn to reason, but we must show them what that looks like.  Stop saying they can't when they can.  Stop thinking I can't when you can. But know that you aren't in this alone, that we are all in this together.