You Have to Get Wet

There are several things that you can do in water.  You can dive off springboards or cliffs. You can play water polo.  You can snorkel.  You can do synchronized swimming or diving. You can bathe. You can throw in a Baby Ruth candy bar and watch the excitement. You can do water aerobics.  You can water ski unsuccessfully. You can go boating unsuccessfully.  You can canoe unsuccessfully. You can fly fish.  You can get baptized.  The list goes on and on.  The worst thing you can do in water is drown! Hence, the inclusion of “unsuccessful” activities.  That is why learning to swim is so important. If you want to be a better swimmer, you must improve your stroke, work on your kicks, and adjust your breathing.  There is one thing you have to do before you do any of these – you have to get wet!  Only through the work in the water can you get better. You can do all the land drills in the manual and all of the visualization that you want, but that will only get you so far.  Bottom line = you have to get in the water! There’s no way around it.  If you don’t know how to swim, don’t wait to learn.  Teach your kids as well. 

You don’t get to be a better teacher because it is easy.  You don’t become a better administrator because it is easy.  You don’t evolve into a great clerical staffer, nurse, para, lunch lady or custodian because it is easy.  I do believe that some have an innate disposition for teaching and I have learned that from giving a Teacher Perceiver hundreds of times. Having the right levels of “naturally occurring” mission, empathy, rapport, objectivity, and so forth does not automatically make someone a great teacher; only that they have the disposition for such.  Often, teachers get better through failure.  What?  If nothing negative ever happens in your classroom, if all of the students get straight A’s, if none of the kids have emotional issues, if all of the parents are your biggest supporters, if the copy machine is always functional, if all of your students are Pass+ on the ISTEP, if there are no interruptions, if no one needs Tiers 2 or 3 interventions, if there is no drama, if no one pukes in your classroom…then, well, you are living in a fantasy and you will never get better at teaching because you were never exposed to failure.  Teaching isn’t always clean.  To get better, you have to get in the trenches.  On those days when nothing seems to be going right, take a step back and be thankful because if you tackle why these things occurred, you will get better and be prepared for the next time they happen…and they will.  Just like in swimming, in this sea of education, you have to get wet.