Year-end summaries bombard our December social media. Wrapped playlists and monthly photo collages and publications’ announcements of their Person of the Year… they’re all meant to help us reminisce (or cringe) at how we spent our latest rotation around the sun.
For teachers, however, December rarely marks an ending. With five or six months still to go in the school year, the bridge from December to January is often less about recaps and resolutions and more about reassessment and realignment. It’s a chance for us to evaluate how it started… and how it’s going.
For the past decade or so, I have had a steady compass to guide my mid-year reflection because each September my students and I choose our One Word- our theme, our mantra, our plan for the next nine months.
The directions explain:
As with every school year, this year you may have a lot of things you are really looking forward to… or some things you’re not so excited about. Maybe beyond your immediate future, there are other aspects of your life that you need or want to prioritize. As we get started with this school year, think about what the next nine months may have in store for you. Choose a word… ONE WORD that will inspire and encourage you no matter what challenges you may face.
After some brainstorming (and internet defining), students decorate the front of a notecard showcasing their word in bold, personalized statements, and on the back, they write me a note explaining their choice.
One Word does a lot of heavy lifting for our culture of learning. Their selections are displayed all year in recognition of both their individuality and our community, while their paragraphs help me get to know them (and their writing habits).
Over the years, kids have pushed themselves to COMMIT, they’ve reminded themselves to BREATHE, they encouraged themselves to LEAP, they’ve allowed themselves to ACCEPT. They’ve dared themselves to HOPE. It’s a Week One homerun for my classes… and through my own participation, it has been a surprising source of comfort for me as an educator.
Six years ago, when the anxiety of a new job overwhelmed me, I willed myself to BELONG. Four years ago, as my confidence came back, I aimed to THRIVE. Last year, as I stepped into a state title, I told myself to RISE.
This year, my school days are a bit different. As I fulfill my year of service as National Teacher of the Year, my classroom looks more like conference centers, and my rosters are rarely teenagers. While I was prepared for the change in lesson plans and daily routines, I also knew part of my job was to retain the core of what made me love teaching and learning.
That’s why I started thinking about my One Word in June. Why I scratched lists into notebooks and possibilities onto post-its all summer long. Why I did the One Word activity during an Opening Day workshop in August. Why I talked about it in speaking engagements throughout the fall.
Everywhere I went, I maintained the One Word mindset. But behind the passion I personified on stage, I was hiding an unexpected uncertainty. Try as I might (and believe me, I really, REALLY tried), as September became October became November, no word ever landed… and the reality finally did.
This year, I don’t have a One Word.
In Mifflin County, high school begins at sophomore year, and that’s the grade I teach. Part of why we do One Word is because my students are embarking on a new journey; it feels fitting to the moment. This year, that purpose resonated with me more than ever. Like a new tattoo to commemorate an era, I wanted my One Word to be something profound, something meaningful, something honest, something declarative. I wanted to title my next chapter in all caps and gold glitter. I wanted it so bad.
But my word wasn’t SPEAK… I still needed to listen. And my word wasn’t LEAD… I still needed to follow. For reasons you’ll just have to believe, it wasn’t uplift or advocate or connect or build or any other that crossed my mind. All autumn long, I heard those words in whispers, but none of them ever shouted. None of them ever rang true. None of them encapsulated all I yearned to feel.
It’s one. simple. word. I told myself again and again, “Just pick one and move on.” But in an uncomfortable life-imitating-art kind of way, this lack of a word felt like a motif my students would undoubtedly unpack if it were written into the plot of one of our class novels. My missing word was symbolic of a larger, more complex idea.
As teachers… as leaders… as parents… as adults, sometimes our responsibilities, our stressors, and our accomplishments commandeer the narrative, they distract us from the universal truth: This is our first time living life, too. When we stand in front of a classroom, when we turn on the microphone, when we talk to our children, when we go to work… often perfection doesn’t just feel like a goal, it feels like an expectation. We remember that we’re supposed to be “role models,” “exemplary citizens,” “mentors,” “held to a higher standard.” And we forget that we’re human.
As I embarked on this year of service, I ached to declare my One Word just as my students do… but I had failed to first declare myself as a student– as a human– and therein lay my problem.
One Word isn’t just a slogan- it’s a recognition that life’s journey is as hard as it is hopeful. It’s the space and the patience each learner deserves as they take on the incredible endeavor of becoming the next version of themselves. Those notecards, tacked together on a bulletin board of intentional chaos, are the guidance we seek as we address our most difficult dilemmas.
How do we build a better world? How do we show up for others when we hardly recognize ourselves? How do we navigate change? How do we teach when we still have so much to learn?
I am a teacher. I choose the objectives. I build the activities. I make the tests. But I don’t have the answers to those questions. All I have… are words.
We try. We take risks. We pray.
We lean on friendship. We cry. We celebrate.
We ask for help. We speak with confidence.
We stand. We fall. We lift ourselves back up.
We rest. We reflect.
We begin again another day.
That’s the journey.
Our students know this — they see it unfold in every book, in every character arc. But analyzing the complexities of life is one thing… embodying them is another. This semester, without the daily interactions of 150 teenagers, my most challenging student became myself. And I had to learn to practice what I teach.
Sometimes there is a singular idea, an emotion or action that drives the story forward, that guides the hero toward his triumph. But other times the path is rocky. It’s foggy, unknown, and full of plot twists. Both are stories worthy of telling and worthy of sharing. And every story is worthy of living.
During our winter break, in this pause between then and now, between how it started and how it’s going, that’s the turning point I’m standing upon, the theme I am certain is universal, and the lesson I most long to teach as our school year resumes.
We are all the words. We feel all the things. That’s what it means to be human.