Everything's Going to Be Alright

Almost exactly two years ago this week, I wrote a blog about the story of my grandfather and the unusual circumstances surrounding his graduation from high school. (You can find it here) As many of you know, we laid my grandfather to rest this week at 89 years old. I spent some time with him during spring break this year and when I arrived at his house, I found him in the back yard working on his lawnmower. He had taken the deck off to sharpen the blades and just physically couldn't put it back on by himself this time. You could tell that it bothered him and it was the only time I can recall hearing him curse. He hated having to ask for help because he was one of those people that didn't mind doing everything for himself. He was very prideful about that and while pridefulness isn't always a good thing, I think that this quality is becoming rarer. Just that same day I had taken my own lawnmower to a service place to have someone else do that job for me. We laughed together about that and he replied, "I guess it will be alright." That was always one of his favorite things to say. While I could create a long list of valuable things I learned from him, it wasn't until this week that I realized that the most valuable lesson was that saying. Things do not go the way that we want them to sometimes. Bad things happen. Bad days happen. But if you take a step back and look with a broader perspective, everything does tend to turn out alright. I surely wasn't ready for him to leave me last weekend, but just like everything else, it's going to be alright.

Very soon, our students will take exams and some of them will walk across a stage to earn a diploma. Some of these students will perform well and some will not live up to what we hoped. It's going to be alright. Some of our Seniors might not quite be ready academically by June 8th, but it will be alright, we will celebrate them when they are ready. Your test scores might be amazing this year, or they might leave you scratching your head. It'll be alright as long as we learn something from them and put that knowledge to use next time. A student's school years with us are a short part of their life and even a teacher's 30-year career is hopefully just a short part of theirs. Remember to take a broad look at your accomplishments and those of the student's that you teach. If we've all tried our best, neither of those will be perfect, but I can almost guarantee that everything's going to be alright.