A Fulfilling Life

The holidays were spent with relatives who I have not seen in years.   This means all the questions were the same.  What are you doing these days? How is life in Charlotte?   I kept my replies simple.  Life in Charlotte is great! I’m a high school teacher and spend lots of time volunteering with the non – profits in our city. The details of my journey aren’t significant to most of the people around the dinner table so, I left them out.  Yet, immediate family mentioned that I’ve started to blog.  This year has been difficult and my blog is among my greatest accomplishments.   I might’ve left out the details around the dinner table but so many have encouraged me to share.    This is meant to be a heartfelt honest reflection space.  There is a sense of hope in every post but this week I chose to highlight the difficulty of friendship.

Along with family gatherings I had lunch with my middle school principal.  We spoke about my teaching journey and then he asked me an unexpected question.  What do you do for fun?  I answered telling him that spending time with students at a local non-profit each week brought me great joy!  This is 110% the truth but, so is the fact that my handful of friends live anywhere from Atlanta to Alaska.   This makes fun days at the movies few and far between.

Finding friends has always been a challenge for me.  I have three best friends.  I met one of them on the first day of High School during lunch. She sat down across from me looking just as bewildered as me.  

  We said hello agreeing that our first day of lunch was awful because we knew nobody!  We spent the next three years as dear friends having lots of simple fun.  I didn’t stay up late and school    football games weren’t my favorite.  She was one of those very special young people who understood that there was more to my life than having cerebral palsy. 

We parted ways in college. So, like every other college freshman I was faced with the challenge of finding my place in a new community (even though I was only 30 minutes from home) along with overcoming the obstacles of my disability.   I understood that going to a four-year university as a student with cerebral palsy wasn’t going to be an easy feat.   I chose to be History major; this meant that my nose was always in a book and there wasn’t much time for fun.  Not to mention, creating friendships seemed more exhausting than exciting.  Nonetheless, I needed a break from my studies.

  I was brushing my teeth one morning when I heard a group of girls talking about the Center for Active Citizenship and mentoring students at Sedgefeild Elementary.   Our freshman class had completed a service project at the local   Title I school but I wanted to get more involved.  I asked the girls what they knew about the university partnership with the school. They simply said they had seen a flyer.   It’s sort of funny that brushing my teeth helped me my find my place in college. Community living really does build community! For the next four years my escape from school was school. I met with my Sedgefeild students twice a week.  We did homework and talked about life from an elementary school perspective.  Going to Sedgefeild was the most meaningful and memorable part of my college years.  In addition to my weekly after school visits, I went to book fairs, bingo Fridays, and organized school supply drives for students over summer vacation.    

   My life isn’t much fun. As a student with several learning disabilities, I’ve always had to invest most of my time in “making the grade”.  In my spare time I love to read, listen to music, bake, and walk.  For better or worse, all of those activities can be done alone.    The focus of my life has never  been fun.  Instead, I aim  to be fulfilled!   Serving and giving to others ---- especially young people is my greatest joy! 

 I subscribe to a blog called Social Good Social Good Charlotte--- The writers of the the blog posted this picture to  Facebook. I was inspired by it and wanted to share!   My city is full of visionaries who are changing  the world.  Check it out!http://www.socialgoodcharlotte.com

The Christmas Angel

*** Blogger’s Note: *** It wasn’t my intention to share too much about faith on the blog because as a public school teacher my faith is demonstrated by teaching with good character.  So, I need to tell you that this post is inspired by the words of a faith mentor who is a pastor.   

The Christmas season is my favorite!  I’m that person who listens to carols right after Thanksgiving and has the greatest collection of Christmas socks, pins, and scarves.  My Mom promises that my festiveness came from admiring my elementary school teachers.  In my collection of Christmas pins is a Christmas angel with a teacher’s apple for a heart.   This pin has special place in my jewelry box apart from the rest of the collection.   Regardless of the season, it’s the very first thing I see everyday when I open my jewelry box.  

My second grade teacher, Madame Quinn gave me the pin.    (She spoke French, so we loved calling her Madame).  We were at our class holiday party when I told her that I loved her pin.   She knelt down beside me and unpinned the angel from her sweater. She smiled saying,  “ Merry Christmas, Julie!” Then she clipped the pin to my sweater.   It was one of the most magical and unexpected gifts I’ve ever received.  The angel has traveled from New Jersey to North Carolina with me unbroken.   I wore it only once four years ago to honor the students of the Sandy Hook tragedy.  Otherwise, it sits in my jewelry box as a reminder that I have been called to teach and celebrate education. 

 My pathway to teaching has been full of detours and more often than not, it’s difficult to see and believe in that HOPE. 

 Yet, small reminders of that HOPE shine in a meaningful way when I need them most.  Last week, I listened to a sermon given by an AMAZING pastor in Charlotte.  (If I could lecture the way he preaches education would be changed forever!!) His message was titled, God’s Math.    This resonated with me in a really impactful way.   This teaching journey was complicated by learning disabilities associated with my cerebral palsy--- most of them are math related.   Dealing with my learning disabilities is one of my greatest concerns as teacher.  Pastor Mark reminded me that there isn’t a mathematical equation for overcoming obstacles of life.    Near the end of his sermon, he said something that spoke to my heart.  It’s the whole reason I wrote this post.

“Here’s How God Does Math:  He gives you a test that you can’t pass so; you’ll look to the substitute who passed it for you!”    In other words, having HOPE in something greater will always give you the ability to follow your heart--- Even if it’s not on your timetable.   The more I reflect on these words, the more true they become.

I am not a certified teacher yet but I encounter hundreds of students each week as a volunteer and a substitute teacher.  It is in these roles that I am beginning to figure out how to answer my calling to teach.    So maybe it’s fair to say that like Madame 'sChristmas angel, my pathway to teaching was an unexpected gift that will help me give  HOPE to others.

Shared Vision of Hope

Today I visited the school where I will begin my student teaching in January.  It took me  five years, two universities, and so much support to get to this point.  It is my greatest dream to be a public school teacher and I’m 90 % of the way there.  As I reflect on my pathway to teaching; I cannot but, think that shared visions of   hope have transformed my life!

My first summer out of college I interned with UrbanPromiseCharlotte, a Christian    ministry with a mission to “provide the students and teens of our city with spiritual, academic, and social support they need to be leaders in their communities.”    My UrbanPromiseCharlotte family is part of the larger UrbanPromise (UP) organization that began nearly 30 years in Camden New Jersey.   The founder of UrbanPromise, Reverend Dr. Bruce Main has invited other faith visionaries to adapt his model to the needs of their own communities. There are now at least seven UP sites  across the country and an international chapter. 

 At the end of my orientation to prepare for summer programing I was so inspired by the promise that filled our building that I decided to write Dr. Main.  Surely, he had to know that UP was literally changing the world but I needed him to know just how deeply it had impacted my life so quickly.  (He wrote back!)  It was so special to belong here because as a disabled woman I see many parallels between my struggles and those of urban youth.  UrbanPromise was the first place where I could be a teacher that gave students true HOPE!  At UrbanPromise we know that life is challenging but there’s also a major emphasis on how students and teens are actively changing the world though character education and faith.  It’s an amazing approach to teaching, learning, and faith.   I’m so grateful that UrbanPromise was my first classroom because it’s the place that rekindled the HOPE that I was good enough to teach.  Perhaps, more importantly, it is a place where students and teens want to learn because they know they matter!  We celebrate each other in really meaningful way.

It is impossible to duplicate what it feels like to belong UrbanPromise in a public school classroom because our UP community is rooted in faith.  Still, I ended up at UrbanPromise because I developed a  teaching philosophy that is grounded in character education and understanding that every student in a school matters and their ABILITIES should be celebrated.  This teaching philosophy was strongly influenced by the Jonsten’s   Renaissance.   Dr. Larry Biddle started the character education program in 1980’s.  His mission was to motivate students.  He wanted to make school a place everyone wanted to be.  It worked!  Renaissance is now implemented in schools across the nation and internationally.  As a middle school student I attended a nationally recognized Renaissance school.  The program is ultimately what inspired me to become an educator.  As a   student who coped with cerebral palsy my teachers and administrators always aimed to celebrate my character and willingness to learn.  School was a place I wanted to be.

So last November after a visit back to middle school, I wrote Dr. Biddle a long over due e-mail for starting Renaissance.   Like   Dr. Main he needed to know that sharing his vision ha

d filled me with hope.  It represents what every school ought to look like! Walking the halls today, I wondered what would Renaissance look like here?

I want to teach because I want to give young people  HOPE.   After all, it is these shared visions of hope that have helped me achieve  the impossible.

Words Matter

Last week I finished my final Graduate School class. My professor ended class by giving us some heart-felt advice as we head into our student teaching experiences. Here’s what he said:  

“You all need to STAY OUT of the Teacher’s Lounge! Every time I visit a school to observe a perspective teacher, I find myself running from the Teacher’s Lounge. It’s the place where people complain!”

His remarks spoke volumes to me.  He was basically warning us as perspective teachers to stay out of what he considered one of the most toxic environments in a school building.  He didn’t want us to hate teaching before we got started.  I’ve read the 50 Great Things Leaders Do from cover to cover a half dozen times. It was written by my former Middle School principal and educational superhero, Dr. Frank Rudneskey.  If you are familiar with education, knowing Dr. R is like knowing the transformative educator Ron Clark.    Dr. Rudneskey's words and actions inspire teachers and students alike to be the best people they can be.  His book is full of   anecdotes that convey a valuable life lesson that can be applied to teaching.

As my professor spoke, I sat thinking that Dr. R had offered similar advice to his readers.   So, today I pulled out my copy of the 50 Great Things Leaders Do.   There it was.  Tip 18: Talk Positively About Someone  (in the teacher’s lounge).    I knew it would be there!

I shared this story because I think that when you think about the lessons your Middle School principal shared with you in Graduate school it’s a really big deal!   It means they’ve impacted your life in a significant way.    My pathway to teaching hasn’t been anything I imagined it would be nonetheless, I continued because I want to create a climate and culture that teachers like Dr. R created for me.     Truthfully, I’ve always hoped that my story would transform the way people viewed education.     It’s a big hope but I am reminded that changing the way students and teachers think about school begins with a few positive words.    Have a great day! Say something positive today.  It’s the smallest words that make the biggest difference!