Victory

My apologies. I wrote this post on time, and forgot to post it - something about falling asleep super early due to extreme exhaustion. I'll work on that. =)

Victory

I feel like I should have a t-shirt that proclaims ‘I Survived Outdoor School 2014’ – or ‘I Didn’t Drown at Outdoor School 2014’ – yeah, it was that wet.

I am so very proud of everyone at Outdoor School – ODS – because this was the wettest ODS I have ever seen, and we managed to get everyone through every part of the program, even though we had to make some adaptations in order to survive the deluges, like bringing one set of evening games inside so we didn’t drown the kids in the field that day (yep, deluges – impressive even for our areas – but we survived, so go us!).

One of my favorite Victories this year was that zero of our students had to go home early. We have the caveat  for ODS that if a student does something extremely unsafe, we call home, and that student’s parents drive up to pick up their student. At times, we have had students with such severe homesickness that we have had to call the parents to pick them up for that reason. Our focus and goal is always what is in the best interest of the each individual, as well as the whole group. This year, we had some homesickness, as expected, but all of our students got through it – yes! We even had students asking to stay over the weekend. While that didn’t happen, it was nice to hear that it was wanted.

Victories in public education are rarely about whether a student passed standardized testing (though we know it must be considered, and we do celebrate those successes) – at least at the local and individual school level. For those of us on the front lines of education, the Victories that truly matter are those that serve the individual student – moving up a reading level, learning a set of math facts, writing a really great paragraph (or, for earlier successes, writing a full paragraph), learning an new social skill, trying a new food or game, or something else that is individualized to a student. We know  - boy, oh boy, are we aware – that we have to have students complete their required testing, and we do so and hope that students do well in that area, too, but that is not truly the way we find Victories. I like our way better (but I also do a great deal of testing at my school, so that might have influenced my feelings on the subject just a tiny bit).

Victories can be miniscule or vast, public or private, and any combination of those or other qualifications. Victories can be having the most points, or achieving a personal record; reading that book you have been dying to complete for years, or having a house plant not die in over a year. They are personal, even when they apply to an entire group.

May your trials always end in Victory.

J