Courageous Patience.

"Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience." - Hyman Rickover

Today I was frantically leaving school to try to make it to the 5 o’clock WOD, and I was feeling beaten down. It was a fight to get the kids to listen today. I felt like nothing I was saying was getting through to them, and, on top of that, a few of them didn’t have their draft of their project done. Not only does that make me sad, but this leaves me with the extra work of emailing home and tracking kids down tomorrow.

Once I got home, I saw that “Greatest Quotes” tweeted the quote above. Well, there is it folks. This was exactly what I needed to hear today before I went to the gym. I think the phrase “courageous patience” sums up teaching in a nutshell! On simple level, as a ninth grade teacher, I repeat everything I say at three times for any hope of a connection. I am not kidding you. All I DO is repeat. On a deeper level, this also reminded me about a late night coffee shop conversation with a teacher friend this past weekend while we were grading. She said brain research shows that even though the kids might not always make the connections right now, down the road it WILL connect. Even though this could take years…like even 10 years….they will be able to apply the skills we are teaching them now. AMEN!!! I smiled and went back to grading. I just gotta keep the faith. Courageous patience.

Teaching high school is hard because you never get instant gratification. One of my good friends in Michigan teaches kindergarten and the kids tell her every day how much they love her, how pretty she is, and give her gifts of love. What do I get? Complaints, gripes, angry parents, depressed kids, and high school students trying to hit on me……REALLY? I mean, I am in NO way saying teaching little kids is easy. Bless all of my friends that teach the youngsters!! I know I couldn’t do it, especially because I have heard the poop stories. Yep, lots and lots of poop. Well, I don’t have to clean up poop but it is sure easy to feel like it with high schoolers abound that don’t want to listen and suck all my energy.
However, on days that I feel like poop I always remind myself that the next day will be better! If THAT doesn’t work then I remind myself that the end of the year will be better (and not just because it is summer break ). The end of the school year is really when I start to see the growth in my students’ writing, when they reflect on the year, and when they normally write nice notes on the end of the year survey or just say thank you.

I see my students from last year around campus all the time (that is what is nice about teaching at a smaller school now). I actually had a former 9th grader tell me that he thought 10th grade wasn’t going to be too bad since I prepared him so well. This was a kid that struggled a bit and I had to push him a lot. Here he was telling me he felt prepared and excited. Boy oh Boy. This made my life!!! Can we get this on video?


This is TOTALLY the same way with Crossfit. Sometimes when I am practicing a new skill like handstand walking, I feel like so many hours go in and only a little progress comes out. This is a VERY hard skill for me to master. These were in a recent competition that a lot of my friends participated in, so it reminded me I better get to focusing on this skill (along with the millions of other things I want to be practicing, of course ). Anyway, I was worried the hard work I had put in a little while ago would have been lost, but, actually just playing around with it a little bit today felt okay. I didn’t get a PR or anything but I felt pretty composed practicing it and remembered the stuff I had learned before. Now I am excited to get back at it! Putting practice into new skills can be unsettling because you don’t always get immediate results but you gotta just keep practicing and keep believing.

More than likely on any given day, if I am feeling good about school then I might not be feeling good about Crossfit or vice versa- especially since I am always seeking to improve. However, when you do something every single day, not every single day is going to be a great teachable moment or a new PR. But we gotta keep the faith, people! Positive attitude is contagious, and it is my job to set an example for my high school students and carry that same attitude through to Crossfit training in the evening.

Don’t stop believing!!