I was in the grocery store the other day and I did something that I very rarely do, I picked up a magazine and read the cover. I’m usually so busy reading edu books that I don’t typically look at anything else, but the Oprah magazine for this month caught my eye. The article was called What Would You Stand Up For: It’s your time to rise and be the light you want to see. That article, coupled with my newest obsessions in the Heath Books, The Power of Moments and Switch: How to change when change is hard has given me pause as to what I’m really doing with my life. Kind of the “What’s my overall purpose here on Earth” question. The BIG why. Pretty deep thinking to have been brought on by a magazine, but I’ll take it.
I have lived my entire life with the desire to do something that actually matters, and also with the all-encompassing fear that one day I’ll wake up and realize I’ve done nothing to make a difference. I think that many educators live with this same feeling at different levels. It may even be the reason they went into education in the first place. I think that when you enter a profession that is more like a calling (teaching, nursing/doctor, police officer, many public servant jobs), this feeling is deeper rooted than most other careers because you need to give so much more of yourself, and your actual “payday” is when something happens and you know you’ve made a difference. Like when you have worked with a teacher and then watch as their thinking does a 180, or when that lightbulb goes off over a student’s head and they finally get that difficult concept that up until that point had been eluding them. We need the money from our jobs to pay our bills, but our success is measured in the lives affected versus our bank account balance. We want to make a difference.
For many of the stories in the Oprah article, the people featured are making that difference in whatever endeavor they took on. Typically, the change happened when they had experienced some kind of tragedy, hardship, or trauma and they had that moment…that one epiphany…that created a relentless determination to create a different world so others didn’t need to go through the same experiences, or if they did, they knew they weren’t alone. I began to think about how it does seem like that’s a common catalyst for great change to begin. What I don’t understand is how we can be more proactive instead of reactive. Why does it take the feelings of hurt in order to motivate people?
In education right now, I feel like many of us are spinning. It’s like that feeling when your kids first start walking and you’re running around in circles trying to save them from their own unbalance so they don’t crack their head on the corner of the end table as well as scrambling to pick anything up that you didn’t know they could reach all the while mentally trying to take note of the electrical sockets that you forgot to plug and then the issue of just trying to keep another human alive. We are being battered with school shootings and politicians who have never set foot in a classroom and an increase in behaviors due to mental health issues for students as well as policy and implementation and technology changes. As far as I’m concerned, we have hit that critical point where most people begin to relentlessly pursue change, even though I can’t say that I understand why we need to get to that point to do so. But, we are so busy trying to find the unearthed electrical plugs that we have no energy to think about how to move forward.
If we want to be change agents, great creators of change, we need to find the thing that sets our soul on fire. We need to stop spinning and focus on where our passions lie and where we can create the biggest waves. The beginning of the Oprah article was what caught my attention:
When you find it, you know it: the issue that sets your brain aflame, the one you’re incapable of shutting up about, consequences be damned. And those consequences are often all too real – discord, danger, or at least some very difficult conversations. Maybe you haven’t happened upon your burning issue yet, or maybe you’re facing a thousand other everyday battles, feeling too overloaded to make an impact, but there are countless ways to get loud about the topics you care about, or to stretch yourself beyond your comfort zone to make your message heard. Here’s hoping no one’s unlucky enough to get in your way. -The Oprah Magazine, April 2018
I have found mine in discussing the mental health issues that our teachers are facing and how to create organizational change to support teachers (therefore supporting students as well) but everyone needs to find what lights them up. I know there are people out there who don’t want to hear about it, and I can tell you that there’s nothing that will fire me up quicker than someone who doesn’t want to recognize this issue. That’s how I know it’s mine. I have no idea if I will make a major change globally, but if I make a difference for one in doing the absolute best I can, I feel I’ve done something which is more than nothing. I think we all need to look for this thing…this one passion that we can’t ignore. If we want to create change, widespread organizational change, we can’t wait for a catastrophe for it to happen. We need to make the decision to find the one thing that lights us up and go with it. For me, I know that if I take this on, it’s the only way I know I won’t wonder one day if I made any difference at all.
