You Can Achieve When You Believe
I FINALLY scrapbooked our family photo at my graduation from WGU in the Spring of 2017. I know that is a little ways back there :). I went back to finishing my degree in 2016. It was INTENSE. I truly felt that I was inspired and directed to finish at that time. However, I didn't just feel the prompting and push to finish. I felt the push that I needed to finish as soon as possible. When I enrolled at WGU, I asked them if they thought it was possible to finish in 18 months. The answer was an absolute no. Somehow, though, I felt like that was the time frame I needed to complete my education in. I sat down and mapped out how many credits I would need to complete in a semester. Then, I broke it down further and figured out that I would need to complete each course in 2.5 weeks. To help me stay focused, I printed out a little sign that said, "You CAN achieve when you BELIEVE."
For 12 months, I slept, ate and did school. Oh. That's not true. I also continued subbing for the school district in all of the schools K-12 and volunteering once a week in my daughter's classroom for 3 hours every time.
Then, if that wasn't enough, one week before school started in 2016, the elementary principal asked me if I would be willing to start the year out for the English 4th grade dual immersion teacher. She had just had an accident on her lawn mower and got a major concussion. I said, "Sure." I set up her classroom, met with her and went over the routines and procedures she wanted the students to learn. That week turned into 4 months teaching full-time. I had three weeks right before Christmas break when I only taught half-days, so I could finish my clinicals. Then, on the first day back from Christmas break, I returned to that classroom and the Spanish cohort side. I taught the first half of the day in Spanish and the second half of the day in English. By this time, these two teachers knew me really well and just had me take charge of all the learning while I was in class. I was also called as my ward's Primary President. We had a rather large Primary. I was over 110 children ages 18 months to 11 years old and 46 different leaders.
Despite everything, I was ABLE to finish in 18 months. I referred back to my little sign every day. I deliberately capitalized CAN and BELIEVE, because it helped me to believe in myself when it was really hard. We CAN BELIEVE, and when we really do, there is nothing that can stop us for reaching our goals.
So much has happened since then. Immediately after graduating, I was hired on as a K-5 elementary teacher and started a brand new blended learning STEAM elementary school. That first year I taught grades 3-5 on Monday and Wednesday and grades K-2 on Tuesday and Thursday. On Fridays, we had different activities, and I taught Spanish to students in K-5. The staff consisted of myself and the principal. Between the two of us, we did everything- admin, recess duty, instruction, interventions, secretarial and janitorial duties.
That was 3 years ago. Now, we are weathering through COVID-19; however, this feels like nothing compared to the three years before. In fact, I feel that things went really well for me and my students this past Spring. Looking towards this next year, I am not afraid or overwhelmed that I will have students in 2 grades attending M-TH in class; 100% remotely; 50% in class and 50% remotely; 3 days in class; and M-TH half days.
All products used in this scrapbook page are from Close to My Heart or Stampin' Up except for the gold flourish stickers and dark blue cardstock.
