Piggybacking lol.

   ​So after I missed writing last week, it was surprisingly easy to convince myself that I could skip another week and just pick it up once or twice before the end of June. It’s crazy busy and I didn’t think anyone would a) notice and b) fault me for skipping out. But then….two things happened…I saw Bruce’s tweet about pride and joy at work, and I found a page I’d copied from Mind Platter as I packed my school bag for tomorrow. Both of them gave me the nudge I needed. So to model a quickwrite, I’m setting my timer for ten minutes, excuse the rambling, and here we go.
   I’m often proud of things at work. Just this week, the NHL hockey playoffs wrapped up. I was totally pulling for Vegas, but alas, the Cinderella season came up just short. But it also meant that our Grade 7 hockey draft was done! I never managed to get any farther than 11th place even though I totally had picked Fleury as goalie, and Haula and Karllson because they are two Finnlanders. What can I say, I have random strategies sometimes lol. It was a girl in grade 7, Nyah, who actually won it. I was proud of the work they did. The kids wrote letters for donations as a prize package, since all of the entry fees were going to be donated. They walked them to different businesses, and in the end, we had a nice prize from the local Co-op. It was great to see the kids have to go out and talk to real people! We donated the money to KidSport in honor of the Humboldt Broncos, and with help from the SRC, it came to $500. Very proud of that too.
   I’m returning the guitars that we borrowed from the division office tomorrow, and so we had our wrapup ‘concerts’ where the kids presented the songs that they learned. On Friday. Last period. In June. I don’t know what I was thinking! But it went well, and I was really proud of them for getting up in front of their peers and trying! And I make a point of telling them all along, that’s one of our main goals. Not even how well the song ends up going, but in the shaky clammy hands, the fast flutter of your heartbeat, feeling like you have to go to the bathroom. Again. It’s all part of performing and it’s awesome. A few groups had to start over. It happens. I was proud of them to pick it back up and keep going, and I made sure to say those words out loud.
   This week is our Education Celebration, and it’s a chance to remind ourselves of all the great work kids are doing. I’ve been working all weekend on a video for the end of the evening and it’s given me a chance to look back through all the tweets and see the amazing things that we have accomplished as individuals and collectively in the past ten months. We’ve had some setbacks to be sure, but sooooo many more exciting initiatives and innovative ideas to keep us moving forward too. I’m proud of the little things that my grade 7s have been a part of. From the Remembrance Day writing, to presents for the cancer kids to give to their families, to the Telemiracle skateathon, to the hockey draft donation. They are all small ventures but they had big social lessons for us to learn, and it made me proud to see how excited the kids were about each of them too.  (The timer is going off!!! And I haven’t even gotten to the joy part yet! *Five more minutes*)
   At a school level, I’m most proud of our school-wide reading. There’s always a reason, or two, or three, why something isn’t going to work. We’ve tried it before. The kids won’t buy in. But our administration wasn’t fazed. We just started it and it worked. Now, I’m pretty sure not all changes are so smoothly implemented, but this one was. And now we are all reading for 25 more minutes a day than we were before. That makes me happy, and really really proud.
   So that’s a good segue into joy, haha. This is me thinking really fast, and it might not make sense, but I think that joy isn’t as much something that you get from something, but something that you give. I think there is joy in every situation, if I bring it. I guess it’s like I tell my own kids, your day (or work) will be as enjoyable as you allow it to be. If you want it to miserable, it will be. If you want it to be fun, it will be. But you make that decision. You make that happen. So to me, there is joy in everything from the minute I walk in the building to when I leave it. There’s joy in talking to students, saying hi, having conversations about really random things, or mentally connecting the plot dots of a story that’s gotten longwinded and seems to have no end! There’s joy in sitting side by side and playing music. Sooooo much joy. Or even playing floor hockey with grade 8s despite getting a stick accidentally in the eye. But even then, it’s made for more interesting conversations with people too. Like the one where someone legitimately mistook my black eye, and thought I was wearing dark purple eyeshadow. If you know me, that’s NOT me.
   Ahhhh the timer is going off again. And I haven’t even talked about the Mind Platter quote that I found. Or about the amazing day that I had at the Walk Alongside conference in Saskatoon, or visiting the Ronald McDonald house, or listening to the teachers who work with hospitalized kids. I guess I’ll attach it as a picture and table the other ideas for another time. As an aside, I hadn’t realized that the ‘pride and joy’ aspect had been added to our PSSD work until I saw it on twitter on Friday. I loved it and know that we will be delving more into that. And thanks Bruce for posting your blog faithfully…without knowing it, you helped me not fall too far off the blogging wagon!
   It’s a crazy busy week ahead, but I’m going to consicously be looking for the pride and bringing the joy. Have a great one!

Kiitos-Hiy Hiy-Thanks for reading!
Edla.

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