Daily Supports

What does support mean to me? It means a lifeline, literally a life preserver in times of trouble. My father was a boater. He was always worried about his children around the water. Even when we proved ourselves proficient swimmers, he still insisted we wear a life jacket. I believe this was mainly to help him feel better, especially once we were adults! This life jacket is what I picture as my supports in life, what I need to feel like I can make it through challenges, even if they are day to day items I am used to doing. It is the routines I follow, people around me, and the standards that instruct my teaching.

In my daily environment, those supports take the form of several people and items. First, my husband is the greatest source of support in my life. He works hard to provide financially for our family which allows me to work in a much lower paying job that I love. Charlie listens helps me think through challenges, and provides support with our children and home as well. My school dean is both my boss and another source of support. She is a sounding board for new ideas, a reality check when I need accountability, and a problem solver when I am struggling with students or curriculum. My coworkers are supports as they bring their own backgrounds to the job, and challenge me with their questions while also helping mine. The benefits of these people are their perspectives and diversity of backgrounds which helps inspire new ideas and solutions. They bring confidence and calm to my life.

Support comes in many forms, and there are two items that also provide immense support. I am a visual learner, and it is very helpful to write everything in an agenda. I follow paper lesson plans and keep a color-coded planner to keep all projects, assignments, work schedules, and family schedules on track. The benefit for my agenda is that it helps me wrap my mind around things that need to be accomplished, and feel calm knowing what to expect next. Finally, it may sound trivial, but my cell phone is a support every day. There are a series of alarms that go off throughout the day. These include typical uses like when to wake, but also include an alarm to send one student to the office when it is time for her medication, another to remind me when it is almost time for a my child to leave for soccer, and other alarms set to remind me to call my mom on her birthday or turn in a paper that day. These reminders keep me from being anxious, and help me stay organized when there are many events in the same day. Without these supports in place, I would be anxious, stressed about schedules and deadlines, and I would be slower to develop in my professional career.

I chose to imagine myself with the challenge of physical inability. I am extremely privileged to be in decent physical shape, and able to move about at will. However, after watching the struggle a colleague has endured over the last year with her knee, I am more cognizant of that privilege. I imagined myself unable to walk. In my daily life, I believe my husband would continue to be supportive both in listening and providing for our family. My dean would continue to challenge me as well. Physically my home environment would be both a support and a challenge. We are blessed as a family to live in a home with wide halls and accessible rooms, including bathrooms. However, we live in a two story home with a basement, and an inability to walk would make navigating stairs much more difficult. With supports in place, there are physical apparatus that would aid in those steps, but I would be much less efficient and unable to participate in our normal daily routine.

Taking my children to their various soccer fields and dance studios this week has opened my eyes to how much more difficult those places would be without the benefit of walking. What happens when the soccer field is muddy and a far distance from the parking, or when the studio open for dance costume fittings is up 4 stairs and the halls have boxes narrowing the path? Additionally, I take thousands of steps during the school day and many of them are weaving between student desks in a classroom. Additional supports would have to be put in my classroom to enable ease of movement and my inability to walk. I am truly humbled this week as I inventory the changes that would have to be made. My colleague has struggled with minimal assistance, and she is an adult so I imagine the increased pressures of a child trying to feel included in our classrooms. Between recess, bus duty, navigating the crowded halls, and doors that constantly shut on their own, I imagine this to be incredibly stressful. It was not until this assignment that I noticed the doors especially, and the lack of automatic openers. Without supports my job would be nearly impossible in its current form. That is the danger of privilege, we do not see what we do not need ourselves.