So many things have happened this year I am not sure what to write about. My journey has been tough but one that has helped me grow. Last year I experienced one of the worst school years I have ever had. My students overall were good, but there were a few totally abusive parents that made my life miserable, and totally took the joy out of teaching their children. Mostly I think it is sad that too many parents care about the grade and less about the learning. I want my students to be life long learners. I want them to not just regurgitate the information I give them and spit it out, I want them to really understand it and be able to use it in "life" situations. Challenging students is a good thing. I will not apologize for it. But the most abusive parents have only yelled about a grade. My child is an A student they are traumatized by your B. LOL like I just arbitrarily assign grades. How is it my B. C'mon parents lets get real. Children earn their grades. What is really sad...if given the choice of having an A with a teacher that really did not teach much, or getting a B with a teacher that truly challenged your child to think deeper, and learn more, I think most parents would choose the given A. Not that they are mutually exclusive, as many of my students get A's...I just don't give them away, silly me I expect my students to earn them. I really did not want to teach anymore after last year, I was so beat up. But that got me on a journey for help. And boy did I find help! I found help from the doctor and was diagnosed with ADD. The medicine, though not a miracle worker, has helped me a lot this year. In many ways it has worked in me like an anti-depressant. Which seems weird to me as I have taken anti-depressants before and they didn't work. Seems like I wasn't depressed just had ADD so now that cloudiness I always had in my brain is gone. Praise God. Thank you Pastor Tina for suggesting I talk to my doctor about this. I also found help in the wonderful world of Pinterest.
On Pinterest a teacher I know pinned some nice foldables, which led me to a blog, which led me to twitter and the math world that I once knew exploded into an amazing universe. I have discovered a world of math teachers out there that want to challenge their students to think deeper, explore math and love learning. I am not even in their league a little bit. But I love learning from them and taking a snippet of what they do into my classroom. Inquiry based learning is truly the way to go, I know it. But I am not sure how to do it with the pacing guide and class minutes that I am allotted. But I can slip in an activity here an there and hope somewhere I will learn to do more discovery activities with my students. You know instead of telling them the principles letting them discover them. Then after they have discovered them give them the notes with the rules etc... Its amazing what the blogging world includes. Middle School math teachers across the nation are challenging themselves to improve their teaching and sharing it with the world. I am quite thankful because they are improving my teaching as well. I am trying to be more reflective and learn what I can do better.
Also on Pinterest I have found teachers that create wonderful learning environments for their students and because of them my classroom is a much more beautiful place. Pinterest has sparked my creativity again, which seemed to leave me once I got overwhelmed teaching. But my year of changes does not end there.
Last year I also became a Pampered Chef consultant. This has been a challenging, fun, hard, disappointing, depressing, enjoyable, struggle. What?! Yea all of the above. Challenging because I have to ask people to have parties. I am not very outgoing and I really have little real friends so this was really hard for me. I got a few parties to start and was able to build off of them and I was doing really well. Then the end of the school year came and I was beaten and broken and I just took the summer off from life. And... the momentum I had gotten started with stopped! So come August I started up again and had a party with a friend which went fairly well, but I got no bookings. But honestly I was still a little wishy washy on whether I wanted to stick with it. I mean I LOVE the products. I really do. It has been so nice having quality products in my kitchen after being married for 28 years. But when I approach people about hosting parties and they don't want to it is hard for someone that already struggles with connecting with people to get that rejection. There is a Pampered Chef director in the area and I follow her on Facebook. Tiffany is just so encouraging and she inspired me to stick with it. Now you may say...well she has to be as she benefits from the people under her. But that's just it, I am not on her team, she gets no benefit from encouraging me. I am very thankful for her, as she is the reason I have stuck it out. She may never know how much I have learned from her but I pray God keeps blessing her business as she really deserves it. She has so many great ideas, and has also led me to other Facebook pages for consultants which has given me so many great ideas I just need to book some parties so I can use them. I love the products, and I love doing the parties. But with the fun comes some disappointments. I finally got a party booked for December my only one. I was so hoping to build off of that, but no one showed up. LOL you gotta laugh ya know? I spent so much time preparing etc... as it had been awhile since I had a real show. But that is part of this. At the same time my daughter Sarah joined Pampered Chef as a consultant and she has been rocking the sales!! Way to go Sarah! Yes I am a proud mama. Sarah is much more outgoing than I am and at the stage of life with little ones, so she has lots of mommy friends from which to build connections. I am very happy this is blessing her, as it is helpful for her and her husband to have the extra income.
OK back to my party of one:) On the way home from the party I still felt God's peace. I feel God is telling me to stick it out and things will work out. See Don and I really need this extra income. It is not a want. We are not making all ends meet. We desperately need another car but cannot afford a payment nor do we have money that we are saving for it. He works in a ministry, I'm a teacher so neither of us get raises very often...if ever. So I need Pampered Chef to work out. I love the company, they really support their consultants. They have many opportunities to earn free things so we do not have to sink our money back into the business. Something worth having is worth working for. Calling potential customers is scary to me. I have an awkwardness when I talk with people, I don't always know what to say so its a fight to do it. I think my biggest struggle this year has been through Facebook. I have tried putting the call out forbook some Facebook parties but I get no takers. Crickets!! That has been hard for me. It is really hard sometime to not take it all personally...you know like nobody really likes me. That's how it "feels" some days, but it doesn't. I know people like me. I know colleagues at work like to work with me and respect my teaching. So its weird that I feel accepted and rejected all at the same time. Pampered Chef I guess makes me face that most of my connections are more superficial. I don't have the close lets get together and share our lives friends. Its something I have recognized for years but don't really know how to get past.By nature I am shy and a little awkward socially; I have struggled with this my whole life. Being a Consultant pushes me to meet people. I love to help people and I need to use that to build my clientele. I want to help people to eat healthier, find quicker ways of making family meals at home, to find the products that fit their needs. I also know when someone hosts a party they can really get so many items free it really is a blessing to them. Especially if they could otherwise not afford to buy them. Knowing this hopefully will help me reach out to others and share about my business.
So right now I am a teacher studying other teachers, learning how to improve my lessons, and hopefully inspire a love of learning and math in my students. I am Pampered Chef Consultant pushing myself outside my comfort zone. I love that it challenges me and I think I will be a better person for it.
Next time: Family reflections.
