The end of the school year always brings great stresses. Teachers are trying to keep the students’ minds in the classroom as the weather breaks, while students would rather do anything but continue the process. As a teacher that doesn’t like the word “stress,” I simply need to take in reminders that this last part of the year is not to be rushed, that I can’t get too negative, and that I have to take my abilities to the next level for students who may not be fully interested in going there. As I begin to hear the mutterings of “just get me to summer”...”I can’t wait for graduation”...or…”There is just so much happening and I have so much going on”...from both teachers and students, this week’s sprint found one teacher who was not joining the race; me.
This is not a message of arrogance, I just found myself in a meta-moment, hitting the pause button before becoming impulsive and joining the race (sometimes it pays to be the slow one). Something that has allowed me to do so is a personal challenge that I have taken on, and it has really changed my view on the process of teaching. This is something that I learned from a non-teacher, and it has made the end of the year more delightful than any other one I have experienced. That person was Sheryl Sandberg, who is known for her “Lean In” philosophy and whose book, Option B, that she co-wrote with Adam Grant, made me try something new to find the good in my day that she calls her “Three Points of Joy.”
“To help Sandberg rebuild her self-confidence, [Adam] Grant suggested she write down three things she did well every day. For six months, almost every night before she went to bed, Sandberg made her list. Grant and his colleague Jane Dutton found that counting our blessings doesn't boost our confidence or our effort, but counting our contributions can.”
I decided to take on this process, but make it my own. I wanted to start smaller and aim for my own personal goal, finding reasons to be optimistic every school day in order to remain inspired to continue to give my best to my students until our final class period together. I called it my Optimism Journal and have been maintaining it since April 9th in a tangible journal as well as a Google Doc to see what I found more beneficial. While discussing the idea with a few colleagues, a new teacher to our department this year, Ms. Sobol, decided to take the plunge with me and we have been doing this side-by-side on a Doc after every teaching day while even including a “bonus” or two on the really good days. She probably is regretting giving in on one of my new ideas so early in her career at Naz, and I will continue to bring more to the table, but she has been a delight to work alongside with and I look forward to reading her comments and stories daily.
At first, I felt very self-conscious about the process. I am not the journaling type and I am terrible at being accountable to myself for things like this; I can’t even maintain a calendar. In this case, doing it with someone else was really helpful. I did not want to miss a day or disappoint the person reading it, but now it has become something I really look forward to on the daily. I am proud to say that I have gone for months without missing a day. The most self-conscious part of the entire process was knowing that someone else was reading my words of praise and I feared coming across as egotistic. Now that I have learned to share and built trust in the process, I wouldn’t want to do it any other way.
As I continue to wade through the pessimism of the end of the year, I find myself looking forward to finding things that I can include in my two bullet points to end the day. Instead of leaving in a bad mood, this helps me focus on the positive and create a positive closure to my day, sending me home in a better mood than many days in the past. I even find myself floating back through it and reminiscing many great days that I would have forgotten about. I start to recognize the small things that happen during the day that I would have otherwise forgotten about quickly and I really enjoy seeing what is going on in Ms. Sobol’s world because we teach all different preps and levels.
This process has been a fun one but I didn’t think it had a purpose other than for the obvious, some positivity and a nice compilation of memories until I was asked by the senior class to give a Senior Breakfast Reflection today. In trying to think about how I connected to this class, what I would say, and how I would begin...I went right to my Optimism Journal. I relived the class and thought about how good I have it. Below is the reflection I gave to a class that will enter a new phase of life. I used the bullets from my journal to structure my talk so you will see some examples of how simple and brief this process is. I am always happy to simply be a bystander in the final days but, today, I really enjoyed providing some closure to a great year. To tie this to my blog, I sat down and took a reminder to make sure I don’t sprint; instead, take in the moments. While many are ready to push everyone out of the door, as if they aren’t already sprinting out of it, I was reminded to hit pause and appreciate what I have.
2018 Senior Breakfast Reflection
“Standing here with you today, I am absolutely humbled to have been nominated to do this. As a person who devotes much of his life to this craft, this is an opportunity for closure with a class that I love in many, many ways. I honestly do not know what you expected to hear when nominating me...would you expect a sassy sarcastic remark about you not having your notebooks on your desk right now? Maybe a creative melange of uses of the word melange? Possibly giving a talk about beginning your 401K and that if you stay single your pockets will jingle? I prefer a different route though, one that we traveled together this school year. You see, I have taught a senior-only schedule for four years now. Every year I enter a great relationship with a class and then at the end of the year we break up as you venture all over the country and world to continue doing the amazing things you do, leaving me to repeat the process over and over again, hoping to establish the same connection I had with a previous class with the current. I thoroughly enjoyed the class of 2017, but 2018 was very different. Eclectic is the best word to describe you as your passions, interests, conversations, and approaches are so very diverse. You were so eclectic and autonomous that, I will admit, I struggled to find the heartbeat of this class early on. I felt unnecessary to your journey and wondered if I still possessed the ability to connect to the heart of a class. As I contemplated what I could do to innovate to your standards, I began something I call an Optimism Journal at that point, something I keep digitally and tangibly with a coworker that I learned from Sheryl Sandberg, CMO of Facebook. Every day, I write down a minimum of two things that made me proud, happy, or kept me connected to my classes. Your names are personally littered throughout that journal. They include funny ones like:
- My many lunch laughs with the squad before class
- Homeroom putting challenges
- A few random “Daaaaaaaaaad” and Bashar al Assad calls, mixed in with the most annoying noise in the world.
- Our singing of Country Roads too many times to count
- Someone wasting three envelopes because he did not know how to fill one out for Econ class
- Listing Thailand City as the capital of Thailand
- And many, many great memes, songs, drawings on the back of quizzes, or lists of quotes I forgot about.
At the same time, the ones I go back to most are the countless times when we:
- Sat down to work on scholarship essays, college apps, and review for tests together.
- When you provided genuine welcome backs from spring break or good morning banana bread.
- When we sat down to discuss life, your anxieties, and project the positives
- When we traded music, articles, podcasts, or books and discussed them afterword.
- When you approached me and talked to me as a human being, not just a teacher, at Naz events or before/after class.
- When you began to change the world by meeting with the Sisters, contacting refugee programs, proving your empathic abilities in class, or sending countless inspired emails about things you have learned.
- Or when you included me in on your life by sharing pictures, greeting me when with your friends in hallways, or inviting me to read poetry at the coffee house with you.
All great moments. Long after you all graduate, These and many other memories are what will shape the legacy of the Class of 2018 and demonstrate the heartbeat I was looking for. I no longer see this class as much as one, single, class of 2018, it's why I struggled to find your heartbeat. I see you as individual, genuine, creative, enthusiastic, pessimistic, personal, and moments that I will forever treasure.
These moments will always fill my heart. I may not show it on a daily basis, but you have owned my heart since day one. If I can offer any advice its to appreciate your own moments. Don’t continue to look so far forward that you miss out on the amazing person you are today and the little things that make everyday amazing. Don’t set your eyes so far forward on College, degrees, making money and getting to the next checkpoint that you regret missing on days, like today, where we get to spend time together and appreciate how far we have come as a collective unit. Back when I started here at Nazareth, one of my teaching mentors Mr. Michalek always uttered to me, “Maximus, you’re too young to be angry. Never forget that happiness is a choice.” I hope that you take Mr. Mike’s words forward and live them out, making happiness your daily choice. The journey may have its struggles along the way, but it is the fun part, the part we should appreciate, the part that is full of relationships with friends, teachers, and teammates that you will never forget. As you reflect on your four years at the academy, I hope you find as much joy in the small moments as the big ones. I hope you come back and connect with us in genuine ways, not just social media requests, as I know my door will always be open, my coffee pot always on, and my big mouth always ready to converse. So take a breath, look around, and be as proud of yourselves today as I am of you on a daily basis. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your time and respect over the last four years, because, Class of 2018, it has been real. So real that I will always keep you tucked in a very special place in my heart. "
-Mr. Anthony Gonzalez
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