Every Single One of Us...

One week. We have been in school for one week and let me tell you that I am exhausted. But blessed, seriously blessed.

This school year I took on a little project for the bulletin board outside of my room. I saw this wonderful idea on Pinterest, and I stole it. Let's be real educators, we see something brilliant and we steal it! Here is the finished project!!

I just love this phrase. "Every one of us a single note but together we create a masterpiece." Each of those note heads placed on that staff are students, a few teachers, and one awesome Assistant Principal's thumb prints. Their individual mark on this world. Each one of those thumb prints represents one living and breathing human life. Each one of those "single notes" has hopes, dreams, plans, and ideals. But also each one of those "single notes" has fears, doubts, hurts, and pains many of which are sometimes just to hard to bear. I stand outside of my room everyday and I look at this bulletin board and sometimes it takes everything I have not to tear up. When it comes to teaching kids music, I tend to get a little emotional, sorry not sorry. The beauty of this board is that what makes it cool is all the notes together. Each day I take single individual "notes" and I help them to learn how to work together to create something wonderful to create a masterpiece. It is the most beautiful sound in the world to me when I hear middle school hormone filled kids work together and create amazing choral music. There is nothing better.

Today as I was standing outside of room one phrase stuck out to me and took on a whole new meaning, "Every Single One of Us." Educators, it takes every single one of us. It takes us working as a team, as a community, as a profession to reach children. To take them new places they have never been, to teach them to explore the world they live in, to show them right from wrong, to teach how to being involved citizens of the world. We can't choose the lives our students live. We can't choose their parents, their circumstances, their homes, their heartbreaks, and their brokenness. But we can do, is the biggest action of all, we can choose to love them. All of them. Their hurts, their broken pieces, their hang ups, and all. Is it easy? Haha, no! I have some students, in fact some class hours that are harder to love than others.It involves a lot of grace on my part. I know that their actions are rooted in something else, but it isn't me. Their hurts, their broken pieces, their hang ups, and all, they bring that into my classroom and they are just craving more. More love, more support, more attention and more joy. In order for me to meet their needs I have to do my best and be my best. I have to see the masterpiece in them, even when they are creating straight jackets out of their hoodies and attaching themselves to their chairs. For many of my students I just might be the only person who sees the masterpiece that they can become.

Educators we are creating masterpieces every day. Are some days harder, yes, but they are always worth it. So my challenge to myself is to be reminded everyday that it takes every single one of us, to create masterpieces. I am not in this alone. We are all working together to change the world. It is a daunting task, but we are professional educators armed with love and compassion, we create and make the most beautiful masterpieces out there! So my friends, this school year, let's choose joy and let's choose to make fabulous masterpieces.