Can I Make a Difference?
Know Thyself, Heal Thyself Monday Prompt: What is it you no longer know? What is now uncertain?
For so many years I had an unstoppable drive to do everything I could to combat poverty through education. I gave what felt like twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week to my students. For over twenty years I have worked in tough urban educational settings. In this time, I have seen many faculty members enter the scene and exit within days. Not everyone can do it. Whenever I have been asked why I stayed and why I put so much into it year in and year out—My response was: Because I can!
Now years later, I am out of the classroom and in a role coaching the teachers’ coaches. I wouldn’t say I can’t make a difference…but I do have to admit that I am not impacting in the same way. Should I be doing more?
Along the journey, I adopted one of my students. He has recently graduated from college and moved across the country. His life is better because of me. My life is better because of him. Should I do it again?
There was a story that I used in several of my teacher trainings and kept in my notebook for years:
The Starfish Story An old man was walking on the beach when he noticed a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. Approaching the boy, he asked, “What are you doing?” The youth replied, “Throwing the starfish back into the ocean. The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.”
“Son,” the man said, “ don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and thousands of starfish?”
“You can’t make a difference!”
After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it back into the surf. Then smiling at the man he said…“I made a difference for that one.” Loren Eiseley
And a poem that I carried with me throughout my career that motivated me:
Do all the good you can By all the means you can In all the ways you can In all the places you can At all the times you can To all the people you can As long as ever you can John Wesley
Some of my students asked me why I had this poem hanging in my room every year. I told them it was my religion. My son remembered that and told his World Religion teacher in high school that I started my own religion. (Kids never forget anything…and you never know who they are going to tell! Oops. That wasn’t actually true.) It wasn’t a religion I started but it was my mission!
Oddly, I never anticipated that I would find myself in this place. A place where I feel ready to pass the torch to the next generation of go-getters with their passion to make a difference. Have I given it everything I have?
It is now uncertain. I no longer know…Can I make a difference?
There is a thing known as compassion fatigue. I suffer to a degree. There are also ages and stages. I think this is just a new age for me. Writing may be the new stage for me…the means by which I can continue to do all the good I can. And, if I write well enough, I will be able to say…I helped that one.
Thanks for reading! Thanks, 𝘋𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘢 𝘊. for the prompt: Monday- What is it you no longer know? What is now uncertain?
