goals and plans.

I learned a lot of things during my student teaching. Some things are obvious - like how to take attendance, count lunch money, and facilitate morning routine all at once - and others are more subtle - like the value of showing your emotions as they happen.

Without a doubt, I learned (and mastered) lesson planning during my four months in room 104. I wrote lesson plans for observations, lesson plans in bulleted lists when I was pressed for time, and lesson plans on the fly when something went awry with my kids. These days, it seems I could write a lesson plan in the blink of an eye. I can tell you with confidence that the best way to plan for instruction is to start broad and work down (using the principles of Backwards Design). Start big picture and take small steps to get there. You start with a goal and work your way down to the plans.

I taught a unit on community helpers a few months ago:

My goal? Students will understand the roles of various community helpers. Goals tend to be broad, big picture, and somewhat abstract in nature.

My plans? They varied day to day. Plans are the specific details, procedures, and how of execution. In that community helpers unit, we cut, matched, and pasted pictures. We dressed up as various community helpers. We read books and watched movies. We used puppets. We played games. Sometimes all on the same day.

Lesson plans can look a multitude of different ways, but they all end up working toward that preset goal. 

So often I use the goals and plans interchangeably in conversation; assuming that goals are the same thing as plans, but they are not the same. Goals are the big picture, broad ideas I have for my life. My goals include things like being a teacher and having a family someday. Plans are the specifics, definites, and concretes. My immediate plans include things such as going to the bank and packing a few boxes tomorrow.

I am coming to terms with the thought that goals and plans are different; with the idea that I have may have a goal, but that doesn't mean I have only one plan. Student teaching, and life, are showing me that it's good to have a goal, an end in sight. But, there is more than one way to reach the goal. There are many different plans and paths that can get you to the goal. Maybe it's my responsibility as a teacher to make a few plans, go for it, and see what happens.

My most recent goal? Become a teacher. Inspire. Empower. See differences as beautiful. Include. Be a committed and dedicated teacher to the students entrusted to me.

My most recent plans? Who knows. Open. Undecided. Unknown.


What are you goals? Your plans? Do you think there's a difference between having goals and having plans? 

"When will it get easier?"

Wow. It's been awhile! The past month of life has been crazy, an absolute whirlwind of life and change, parties and celebration, hellos and goodbyes. I've sat down to write a handful of times, never certain of how to start or what to say. Notes and ideas for blog posts abound in my journal, I just haven't been able to get anything out. I think that's okay. It's a lot to process. I think I am ready to start writing again, at least for tonight.

I spent the majority of yesterday in Milwaukee with my sister, brother-in-law, and sweet new nephew Dane. Have you met Dane yet? Allow me to introduce you.

He's adorable, I know. Don't let the sweet sleeping picture fool you. He is adorable, I'm not denying that. But he can be, according to my brother-in-law, a crying fuss bucket. I spent the majority of yesterday with my little Danish, and he spent a lot of that time screaming. Hungry? Cold? Tired? Cranky? Sleepy? We're not too sure. It was a guessing game to figure out what he needed and how we could give it to him. 

At some point during the day, my sister asked in defeat and desperation, "When will it get easier?" Honest. Tired. Real. She was unfiltered and uninhibited, exhausted and straightforward. 

When will it get easier? When will it feel real? When will it stop? Go? Move? When will I understand it? When will I feel like I have a handle on it? 

You could be asking these questions about parenting, about changing jobs, about graduating college, about saying hello and saying goodbye, about a thousand things in life. 

As I move through a particularly tumultuous and uncertain season of life, I am starting to realize that it may never get easier. I may never fully understand the roles and spaces that I enter into. I may not ever have a handle on the fact that life, whether in this season or another, is uncertain and uncanny and unknown. Life is not static and just as I figure out one thing, another thing gives way. Life doesn't stop and doesn't give us answers. 

Luckily for Katie, I think it will get easier. I think as the days and weeks pass, she will get into a rhythm with Dane. They will learn one another; she will learn his cues and he will learn how to communicate his needs more effectively. He will learn to sleep, and it will get easier as she and Mark become more rested. I do think that as some things get easier, others will become more difficult. As Dane grows, Katie and Mark will become comfortable but will still daily face the unknown paths of parenting. 

I want to make friends with the idea that this whole thing called life might not ever get easier. Maybe that's the wrong question for me to even be asking. Regardless, I want to make friends with the idea that I'll always be facing the unknown and I won't always understand it or be able to solve it or fix it.

For tonight, I am okay with that. There's a great sense of peace that comes with not knowing and being okay with not knowing. It's a type of free-fall, to know that I don't have all the answers, but I'm not supposed to have all the answers. To know that this season is not easy, but it might not ever feel easy. For now, I am okay with that. 

the spiral staircase.

One of my students is exceptionally good at identifying patterns. When we're working on patterns together, she gets so excited to tell me what comes next. Circle, square, circle, square, circle ... and Selma will yell "SQUARE!" Flower, butterfly, butterfly, flower, butterfly ... "BUTTERFLY, Claxton!!" Selma does an incredible job of predicting what comes next with patterns, and I can't help but feel like that's not unlike life. 

I think that each of us struggles with a specific set of issues and challenges that become patterns in our own lives. Certainly not every hard thing in life is a pattern. There are some things in life that come unexpectedly, harshly, and completely break us apart. Those are not the type of struggles I am addressing. However, I do believe there are struggles in our lives that are patterns. Maybe you continually struggle with the need to be in control, to plan. Or maybe you're at a constant battle with  needing the approval of others. We spend a large part of life, I think, circling around a central set of challenges. 

The spiral staircase. That's what Father Bob calls it, anyway. You don't know Father Bob? Don't worry, I don't know him personally either. I know of Father Bob through Heather. He was Heather's spiritual advisor last year, and of the many conversations I've had with Heather over the course of our friendship, the conversation about the spiral staircase is one I remember most. 

The spiral staircase is the idea that in all of life, we circle around a set of struggles that are central to our being. As we walk up the staircase, we circle around these challenges. We walk, we struggle, all the while moving upward. As we move up, our posture and reactions to life, pain, and experiences change. We struggle through something, walk awhile, and come around to the same issue again. Only, once we've walked, we're at a different place in our journey up the staircase. We approach the situation differently. If we're moving faithfully through life, the hope is that we walk up, becoming more like Jesus, more like who we were created to be. 

The top of the staircase, I think, is Heaven. We spend our whole lives walking up the staircase, circling around our brokenness. When we arrive at the top of the staircase, we've become like Jesus, complete. 

To be honest, we won't arrive in this life. We won't be complete here. The more I experience of life, the less I believe that I'll ever reach that end where I am complete, content, ready, perfect. I don't think I'll reach a day where I stop facing challenges and struggles. Challenges and struggles and difficulty are a part of life in this world. Maybe I'll never reach the day where the idol of approval and the struggles of inadequacy stop breathing down my neck. I can however walk upward, move forward. But I'll never reach perfection in this life, because perfection doesn't exist in this life. Perfection is a part of God, a part of heaven. All we can do is keep walking. Keep circling. Keep faithfully walking up the stairs. 

It's only when we've walked up the stairs that we can realize how far it is we've truly come. When we have walked up and around, we can look down and see that we've grown, become. We're closer to where we're going, but we're still not there yet. I think the best thing we can do is to identify the patterns in our lives and put on our comfortable shoes.

What are the patterns in your life? What are the central struggles you face? Which way are you moving on the staircase? 

living the Saturday.

Yesterday was Good Friday; the day Jesus was crucified on a cross. Tomorrow is Easter Sunday; the day He conquered death and rose from the grave.

So, what does that make today? Saturday (clearly, I have learned something from teaching elementary school). Today is Saturday. The day in-between Friday and Sunday. The day in-between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The day, for most of the world, that will be lived like a normal day. All around, people will be walking through today without thought or question. So often when we think about the story of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, we focus on Friday and Sunday, but never Saturday. We rarely discuss the importance of Saturday, and I think that it's just as much as part of the story. Saturday is the middle, the in-between, the waiting, hoping, and knowing what's here but not yet. Saturday is the nitty-gritty; the split second pause between death and life.

See, when we skip over Saturday, we're missing a huge part of the story. Saturday is the yearning and hoping. On Friday night, we remember and recognize and feel the weight of Jesus hanging on a cross for our sins. In the end, He rises. Jesus triumphs over death. There is hope on Friday, but we don't get to see it fulfilled until Sunday morning when the tomb is empty.

Saturday is the middle of the story. On Saturday, we wait. We know full-well that Christ rises on Sunday. We know the end of the story. The end of the story is not sin and death. Death does not win. The end of the story is hope, redemption, joy, and new life.

But Saturday is the middle of the story. On Saturday, He has not yet risen. On Saturday, the work that Jesus did on the cross is done. It is finished. It is here, but not yet. So on Saturday, we hope. On Saturday, we hold onto the hope that we know is coming but we know is not yet here. On Saturday, we hope in the resurrection and the promise of new life, but we live in the waiting.

So much of our lives are spent living the Saturday. I could argue that our lives are one big, continuous Saturday. We live in the middle, the meantime, the waiting. We live in what's here but not yet. I love Easter weekend, because in a season of life that feels endless and tiresome and unknown and uncertain (maybe this is not just a season, but all of life), I can cling to hope. I can hope in Sunday, in the resurrection. I can grasp, in the middle of the story, that there is something great to come. 


That's why Saturday is such an important part of the story. On Saturday of Easter weekend, we are reminded that the story is not over. We are given the opportunity to sit in hope, to marvel at the mystery of what's here and happening and what's yet to come.

high-five friday.

It's F-F-F-Friday! If we were having a face to face conversation, I'd tell you in sign language (cause that's how this teacher rolls these days). It is indeed Friday; a day full of finishing up projects in the classroom, keeping learning fun (trying, anyway), gym class day (hooray!), and snack and a movie in the afternoon. Friday is my students' favorite day of the week, and I think it's pretty awesome, too.

I'm going to start something new on this here bloggy blog. Lately I have read some really good, thought provoking articles online; on blogs and news sites and websites found at random from lots of clicking . I figure, it's worth it to share what inspires me and makes me think. Truly, no idea we ever think of is one hundred percent original. We're always pulling from the different perspectives, ideas, opinions, and experiences of the people around us. So much of what I write on this blog is a combination of "this thing I heard here" and "this thing I pinned here" or "that thing that she said in the car the other day." As we take in the world around us, we use what we hear and see and experience to shape our own ideas, thoughts, and wonderings.

So from now on, I'm going to start some high-five Fridays. High-fives for the top five articles that I read in the week. High-five for good writing. High-five for thought-provoking. High-five for reading an article that points me to a bigger truth. High-five for a different perspective. High-five for bloggers around the world, writing and experiencing and sharing. High-five to you, too, for reading this blog. Just in general, high-five fridays.

Here's to the first every high-five Friday. Here's my top five articles of the week.

1. From the Men: What Decides How Much A Woman is Worth? Read it here.

2. The Before and After. Seriously, you want to read it here.

3. Confidence without guts. Seth Godin is a boss here.

4. Want to be happy? Stop trying to be perfect. Ok, so I read it a few weeks ago ... but it's so freaking good here.

5. Thankful Thursday. I also read this last week here, but it inspired and fueled my creation of the thankful list this week (more on that to come).


High-five Friday! Happy reading and happy weekend to you.




What has inspired you this week? Who, what, and where will you high-five today?