Pass/Fail

For those of you who have been worried sick about me, you can rest easy tonight, I'm feeling much better.  I'm happy to say my case of the bloggies is slowly dissipating and my case of the common head cold is also falling by the wayside.  By the way, I expected more get well bouquets and cards than I received.  I guess my suspicions about the validity of some of my friendships was confirmed.  :)

Today I did absolutely nothing (I think that is the reason I must be feeling better).  It was the best!  I took a long nap, watched Good Will Hunting and about 4 episodes of ANTM, ate left over brownies and watch my NCAA bracket crumble along with the rest of the entire nation.  It was awesome, aside from the crumbling bracket part.

I tried not to think of school much at all this weekend and I would have to say I was pretty successful in that endeavor until just a little bit ago.  This week is ITBS-WFH (standardized assessment week from h-e-double-hockey-sticks).  I'm nervous.  Even though I've been told a million times that the scores are not a direct reflection on me as a teacher...every teacher knows that is only partly true.

I've pushed my students, challenged them, covered a lot of material and fought tooth and nail along the way to get even the tinniest ounce of affirmation.

I feel like this week is the moment of truth.  I'm pushing them out of the nest to see if they can fly...I hope they don't fall flat on their faces, I would be devastated.

I don't really want to blog about school however, so I will attempt to relate this situation to something else that has a tendency to consume me(and is a little more light hearted)...basketball.  I played basketball for a coach in college who had a lot of really wise things to say...if I listened (sometimes I was that girl in the back of the huddle with a few other girls snickering at the color of the assistant coach's tie or something else obscure, tee hee hee).  I did, by chance, catch a few little tid-bits of wisdom and this is one of those:

There is no need to be nervous when you are confident that you have prepared well.

In the game of basketball of course that meant giving every ounce of effort for every moment you had to prepare, it meant seizing a vision and having a drive, it meant building on a foundation that you laid starting the very moment you committed to the team.

This seems like it could be an analogy not only for a teacher willing her students to learn, but also for something a little bigger.

Seizing a vision, having a drive, building on a foundation, committing; these can all be words that are just cliche, or they can be what you and I live.

I want to be the person who lives those things.

I don't want to go through the motions of the mundane and simple, I want my life to be me in training.
I want to be preparing well for something to come, grabbing ahold of a vision that is far bigger than I could ever imagine and committing to living that out in my life regardless of where I am, who I'm with or what I'm doing.

It is so easy for me to get caught up on the pass/fail outlook.  Will my students pass or fail?  Will I get that job?  Did we have a winning season? Will I make the 'right' choice?  

...Earth to Anna...those are the wrong questions!

Are you preparing right now for that which is bigger than just pass/fail?