Refill Your Cup

It has definitely been a while since I lasted posted on this website. Sometimes even the best intentions go awry when life gets in the way. Since I last blogged September 2014 I have become engaged to my best friend Kristie and are getting married July 2016. The closer the day comes the more I feel how real all of it is becoming. 

The reason for the title of my blog post relates to a blog post I read today in my Ed Leadership class on Leadership & the Profession. The class is taught by Bettendorf HS Principal Jimmy Casas and I'm pretty sure our cohort could not be any more blessed to have such a passionate and inspiring educational leader to learn and grow from. The blog post was about the "4 Ways to Refill Your Cup" and it talked about how it's easy to get sucked into the daily grind of day to day things throughout the school day. Instead of getting stuck in a rut he said that you should "empty your cup, shift your focus, and dedicate your time and energy to filling the cup of those who you were relegated to serve- your students, your staff, and your community. When you fill the cup of others, your cup is filled."

This last statement is really the one that struck me throughout the entire post. Many of the things we talked about this weekend, our first of a three-weekend course, was about modeling excellence and I believe that when you fill the cup of others that is modeling excellence. If I am striving every day to serve those around me, my students, colleagues, admins, etc... then my cup will be overflowing with positives rather than the negative, pessimistic mindset that comes with only focusing on "the daily grind." Since starting my Master's Program through Drake University in ED Leadership in January I have become much more of a reflective learner and really believe that this program will set me up to having a mindset of always being the lead learner. It is my responsibility to model excellence in my classroom so that way my students clearly know the expectations I have for them.

I am going to make it a personal goal to blog once a week, either about something happening in my classroom, in our building, or just something that I read or heard in the education world throughout the week. It's been said that we are all geniuses, and the world needs our contribution. I wouldn't say I'm a genius in anything yet but I will continue to strive to contribute as much as I can.

Until next time,

Derek