Tag: celebrating

Adults can still Celebrate, Right?

My piano students just played in their final recital of the school year. All of my choir duties are finished at school. I got to help the kids with their school musical as well, and that is done and over with. The school year is just about wrapped up, musically. A couple graduations and chapels to play at then moving on to summer music. 

It has been a really great music year. 

I was thinking about my piano students today. How proud I am of them, and how happy they were to show their family and loved ones what they’ve accomplished. I love how kids are unbashful to show off what they’ve achieved. Look what I did! And all the adults in their lives are equally happy to delight in those deeds. Great job! You were awesome! That was amazing! Because they did do a great job and it was amazing and they are awesome. 

When we get older we learn this thing called modesty. Lets not draw attention to how great we are, that would be boasting. We shouldn’t brag. Let somebody else praise us. And all this is true. We don’t like to hear adults talk about all their accomplishments. We don’t like people who brag. Boasting is not attractive. 

But, somewhere in there, I think we might have lost our ability to just celebrate every-day accomplishments. We know how to celebrate the big, giant deeds, but the smaller ones tend to get ignored. 

Today, as I had my last day of lessons with my kids and helped them get ready for their recital, I felt like a little kid, looking for a grownup that I could just tug on their sleeve and say, LOOK WHAT I DID! ISN’T THIS AMAZING! Somehow I managed to communicate well enough that these kids were able to take all their talent and potential, add in a bunch of their own hard work and all grow musically. Noticeable growth. WOW!! I worked hard, they worked hard, and together we did something amazing! 

I’m pretty excited about this past year teaching choir at my kids school too. I got thrown in the deep end and I didn’t drown. I had a crash course in teaching kids’ choirs and I learned a lot. I don’t know if we are making serious progress yet, but I know that all those kids know at least a little more about music than they did at the beginning of the school year. And I am really excited about next year and figuring out how I can become better at the job. 

Not big giant accomplishments. But, something worth celebrating. 

I know you all have things worth celebrating too, and maybe you’re too modest to bring it up. 

I’ll see if I can hit on some of them.

All you parents of school age children out there, guess what! You did it!! You’ve just about got your kids through another school year! You’ve got them to school every day, you’ve fed them, you’ve clothed them, you’ve made sure they did their homework. YOU ARE AMAZING!!! GOOD JOB!!

All you teachers out there.. YOU DID IT!!! YOU’VE JUST ABOUT MADE IT THROUGH ANOTHER SCHOOL YEAR!!! You are amazing. Miracle workers. And all you school administrators, Wow, I am in awe of what you have accomplished this year.

My brain is focused on school related peoples, but hey, all you adults out there. Adulting every day. Wow. Once again, you have pulled yourself out of bed, paid the bills, done the responsible thing yet again. Way to go! 

I’m proud of you all. Good job. 

I’m Celebrating!

I’m going to break one of my personal rules, and write about one of my kids. My eleven year old is not on social media. And none of his friends are on social media. And I’m saying nice things for the most part. And if he discovers this somehow in a couple years, I don’t think it’s too embarrassing, and I’m not betraying any confidences…Ok, now that I’ve justified this to myself, I will continue…

So, this particular child has always struggled with education. I homeschooled him for three years. Two of those years was just doing kindergarten. Twice. Because he hated it and wouldn’t do it. And no matter how I tried, I could not convince him that school was something worth putting any effort into. 

This child was actually a big part of why I put my kids in public school. We did three years of school and he still couldn’t read. I didn’t have the energy to solve this problem. Enter Public School, stage right. 

When I enrolled him I explained that he was significantly behind his peers. They said, don’t worry, we will help him. And they did. They put him in an intervention program. We had a couple meetings with administrators who all assured me they had the problem under control. 

By the end of our first year of public school, he was reading! Yay! All of his teachers loved him. He always worked hard, was kind to others, participated. ( Apparently working hard for teachers and working hard for mom are two very different things.)

I would get reports every couple months telling me about his progress. Lots of charts with little dots. Your child is here: dot. The rest of the class is here: dot. This is how far we are hoping to move his dot in the next couple months: dot. 

I attended all the parent teacher conferences and all his teachers assured me that he was working hard, giving his best, and they were all pleased with his progress. And so, we did three years of intensive intervention.

Last night I was going through his school folder and found a stapled pack of papers addressed to me. The front page was a letter addressed to all parents of 5th grade students. In the letter the teachers explained that, as a result of school getting out in March, our students were struggling with a bigger than normal gap. They were also having a harder time adjusting back to a school routine. No one’s fault. We just have to face these challenges head on. Etc etc. 

I went to flip to the next page, and I was fully expecting it to be an Intervention report where they would tell me that my child qualified for the intervention program, and these were his test results, and these were the steps they were going to take to help him. This was what I was expecting to see. 

Instead it was just two pages of test results from their beginning-of-the-year testing.  

The first page had a chart and then explanations of the chart. I glanced at the chart, was confused, so I read all the fine print. My child scored in the 80th percentile for reading for his grade. He was labeled “above average” for his reading skills. I flipped the page. Math. He was in the 76th percentile. Also above average. What? 

Somehow this child managed to bridge the gap and then leap forward. 

I have been giddy with pride and happiness for him. 

So, forgive me about gushing about my kid. But, I think it’s good to celebrate when someone has overcome such a big challenge!