Another year, another payment.

“Don’t let your dreams just be dreams.” That is how the saying goes, yes? I keep paying for this without ever doing anything with it. This hasn’t been the year for it either.

I decided last year I was going to do this, and then totally didn’t. Paypal just informed me I’ve paid for another year, so here’s to another attempt.

“Do. Or do not. There is no try.”

That one always bugged me because I grew up hearing:

Try wait.

Try come.

Try move. 

That local halfway-polite-not-quite-an-order-but-still-not-“please” command/request. I still hear it used, I use it myself. I see it being obeyed and I sometimes watch people get mad when it is used because it is “not proper”. 

“Try” is also on my mind because I have a four year old who is doing new things and doesn’t want to do other new things. “Just try,” has become a regular phrase for me when speaking to him and he’s been echoing it back.  Fast learner. He does it with food and he does it with play–he’ll share his food, “Try, Mommy!” and he’ll encourage me to move and chase him when I’m being lazy at the playground.

“Baby, Mommy’s tired.”

“Try, Mommy!” he says, tugging on my hand as he grins. 

And I’ll try and I’ll do.  It’s a fitting lesson for me as a mommy and as a public school teacher. I have to be the model for the skills and attitudes I want my kid(s) to acquire–the biological one and the 160-180 teens that rotate through my classroom every year. I have to show patience when I’m being stretched thin. I have to show courage in adversity, what it looks like to mentally work through a new problem, how to deal with embarrassment, how to recover from a mistake, how to admit ignorance and how to fill in that knowledge gap. I have to be culturally sensitive while teaching them how to be critical thinkers that question and evaluate information and its sources.  I have to examine my biases while helping them identify their own and others in discussions of audience and purpose. 

This year is almost over and it has been a frustrating one.  More so than in the past, this year feels like I have too many students that are in the “do not” camp. There is no”do” and there isn’t even any “try” in them. I’m feeling a little burnt out… maybe they are, too. 

Two more weeks… gotta keep trying, though.