The Surprising Thing About Patience

     There is no getting around the fact that people are in the field of education deal with one giant issue. We hear that having it is a virtue and that it is one of the most powerful tools we carry with us each day...but that does NOT mean that we don't struggle to implement it every day. You might have already guessed it (thanks to the title) but I'm talking about patience.

     Patience is one of the things I have been consistently inconsistent with because I feel that patience rests on a sliding scale and there are several factors that go into whether or not I'm successful in using it. Some days I am super patient, while on other days it may be better off if I give myself and my students plenty of room. Patience has allowed me to do some pretty cool things with students, because I was willing or able to be patient with them. My lack of patience, however, has lead to some pretty heated conflicts in the confines of my classroom as well.

What I see when I look up from the keyboard

     Because of patience, I have been able to push, cajole, and motivate students to graduation when at the beginning of the year we weren't sure they'd be able to. I have seen students go on to be good and productive members of society because of the patience I was able to show them and they were then able to use in turn. Graduation is one of my favorite times of year because I get to see the faces of kids walk across the stage who were a breath away from not being able to do it. Most of this is because they busted their rears to get work done and make something of their senior year, but I like to think that a few times of showing them patience may have given them the gentle nudge to keep going.

     My lack of patience however has lead me to be a less than perfect teacher more days than not. I can't pretend to be one of these awesome Instagram teachers who have the perfect day every day (we all know it's not true, and most teachers on Insta do a pretty good job of being pretty open and honest about their successes and failures). Instead, I have had days where my personal life leaks into my professional one. My bad personal days become my bad work days. I've written about personal struggles or setbacks on this blog before, and those have lead to some pretty harsh work days where I just cannot separate the two. It is one of my biggest flaws as a person and as a professional educator; but it is a work in progress.

    So, the surprising thing about patience is that it is more than a virtue that we can all strive to work towards- instead it is a gift. Those that have it need to value it, especially if they work in this field where more teachers than not leave the profession within the first five years. It's because there is not patience. Teachers, students, parents, and administrators all struggle with being patient. When everyone is on board and working together, patience is abundant, but when it's the middle of January and there's no end in sight, that is when we all have to dig deep and find that extra patience.

     Even if you're not an educator; if you work with people at all or are a parent to any age of child, you know all too well how important, how valuable, patience is. I hope you find your patience easily today. I'm looking for it too.

Best,