Work vs. outcome

I love listening to the podcast The Next Right Thing on my way home from work.  Emily P. Freeman is the podcaster and she is one of my pretend friends.

The episode I listened to yesterday (from back in March) was an interview with Parker Palmer.  He said something that resonated with me so much I turned off the podcast to think about it the rest of the way home.

(That happens often when I listen to podcasts, mostly the Follow Him podcast.  I've got to stop and think.)

She was asking Parker Palmer, who is an author and speaker and activist about his vocation and what he wanted to be known for. Here is part of his answer:

I think it resonated with me because it is outcome season at school.  All the high stakes tests are happening.  We will be judged as teachers and as a third grade team and as a school and as a district and as a state by how our students do on these tests.

Gulp.

I am not there to guarantee test results though, not really.  I would love it if they do well (and some of them REALLY won't) but what drives me is the connection I have with them.  I love the improvement they make, the growth I can sometimes tell even though it isn't measurable to anyone else.   I love seeing them want to read and help each other. I love that they begged me yesterday to keep reading aloud to them.  I love when I take away their books because they are reading when they should be doing something else.  They are readers!

I love seeing the student who was so paralyzed by anxiety at the beginning of the year that they wouldn't even talk to me has a friend now.  They are inseparable and things are so much better. 

The outcomes come and go.  My attachment to them does not.

One of my boys is the younger brother of a former student who is now in junior high.  He stops by to see me before or after school when he is picking up or dropping off his brothers and I am just so proud of what a handsome and confident kid he is.

They are in my heart.

An even bigger portion of my heart is captivated by my three babies who are fully grown.  Braeden, Emma and Mark.  My work is to be their mother.  I know only too well that if I have hitched my wagon to the star of a particular outcome, I may feel like a failure.

I still want to be their mother though.

Come what may, I'm their mother.

As mother and as teacher, I will focus on what I can do.  I will dedicate myself to the cause.  My dogged trying is the outcome I'm looking for.