"I Am a Champion and You're Gonna Hear Me Roar"

Been wanting to blog about this for a little over a week now, and the inspiration just hit me today so here goes.

image courtesy of mathieujang.com

One of my best friends, and someone I consider my brother, Brad Waid (@TechBradWaid) recently wrote a blog post called "Tired or Inspired" where he went through and listed people that inspired him as an educator.  What that post did for me was remind me of what keeps us teachers going.  Inspiration.  Inspiration from our students and yes, even inspiration from other educators.

The past few weeks for me have been an incredibly trying time.  From losing a close family friend at the too soon age of 19 to dealing with things at every turn that have made me feel insignificant, undervalued, ignorant, and sometimes not even treated like I knew how to do my job.  So many factors have been really heavy on my heart lately and honestly I've been really down in the dumps dealing with a plethora of emotions that threatened to almost derail my first week with my students.

Even this holiday weekend all I could think about were those many negative things.  Those things that were stealing away my joy, creativity, and passion.  Then today I had a chance to chat with Angela Maiers (@AngelaMaiers) on the phone.  And when I called her, the first thing she asked me was "What amazing things have you been doing.  Share with me your genius".  Wow.  What a powerful statement.  It hit me like a ton of bricks.

Too often as teachers we feel like braggarts when we talk about the things we're doing in our classrooms or things we're doing to change the world.  But guess what WE are doing great things!!!  And we are being extremely SELFISH when we don't share those great things with others.  And I sat there and shared with Angela things I was doing, and when I did she got excited, really excited.  And it reminded me of when I read Brad's post on his website.

I personally LOVE hearing the amazing things people in education are doing.  It gets me fired up and it reminds me of why I love being in education.  When I get that phone call from a friend to share with me a new opportunity they've gotten or something new their trying in their classroom I get soooooo excited for them.  I want to know more, it fuels me.  I need that.  I need to hear about the greatness others are doing because it continually pushes me on to be better.

So I could sit and complain about how the past two weeks when I was told I couldn't do something, or I wasn't creative enough, or I wasn't important.  Or I could sit here and celebrate the amazing things that not only I'm doing, but that all of us are doing!

The title for this blog post comes from a Katy Perry song called "Roar" which is quite the uplifting song, and I love the lyric that says "I've got the eye of the tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire.  Cause I am a champion and you're gonna hear me Roar".  And I thought of the texts this week I got from one of my best friends, Drew Minock, sharing with me his awesomeness or yet another amazing idea he had (he has soooo many good ideas).  Or phone calls from Brad Waid to talk ideas or just to remind me of why I do what I do and of my value.  Or those talks in the hall from Stacey Huffine that told me to just keep going.  Or those group texts from Jake, Wendy, and Martha or Andrea who reminded me that what I was doing WAS important.  Or those tweets from Marlon, Evan, or Scott to check in on me.  Wow.  My PLN is more than I ever imagined.

So thank you to my amazing friends and PLN who have comforted me, trusted me, built me up, and even more so who have inspired me along every step of the way of becoming the best teacher I could be.  People who inspire me like Brad Waid, Stacey Huffine, Chris Kesler, Erin Klein, Jimmy Casas, Angela Maiers, Andrea Keller, Wendy Sanders, Jake Duncan, Martha Lackey, Marlon Ng, Evan Scherr, Scott Floyd, Matt Gomez and Drew Minock and sooooo many others.  And I can't wait to go into more detail soon in another post about these people and even more people who inspire me.

So let us stand together.  Let us celebrate one another.  Let us share stories about the awards, the joys, the successes, the light bulb moments.  Let us not be afraid to talk about the amazing things that each one of us are doing in our classrooms.  Because when you share your story, when you share your most recent award, when you share your success, it helps me.  It makes me want to be better.  It makes me want to be like you.  So please, keep inspiring me and feel free to share below in the comments the amazing things you're doing!  I want to know!  Thank you and #youmatter.