Professional Development Day

     Last Wednesday, September 12, we had a Professional Development Day at work. The students had the day off and all staff enjoyed a day with our guest speaker which may I add, was very hilarious. His name is Ken Williams. In short, the message was about trying to help our students learn with the teaching methods used. This guest speaker was kept everyone very engaged in his presentation. He had a few assignments for us to do in teams which is why I am writing about this.
     One of the assignments he had was his "building trust" assignment. Basically, we got in groups of 4-5 and we had to share personal information about ourselves with the group. My group consisted of 3 nurses (including myself) and 1 school psychologist. These are the questions we had to answer to our group:

1. Where did you grow up?
2. How many kids in your family?
3. What was the most difficult and/or important challenge of your life?
4. Describe a moment of great pride that you experienced in your youth.
5. Who was the most influential leader in your life?

     It was a pretty neat assignment and some groups had things in common with other groups. We had about 5 minutes to answer these questions and the room was very quiet. I had no problem answering 1-3. When I got to 4, I was stuck! I could not think of anything that caused me great pride in my youth! Until today I still can't think of anything. I'm sure that many great things happened to me as a child/adolescent but why can't I remember? Could it be that my youth was filled with un-prideful moments? I don't really remember being an unhappy child, or was I? This to my discovery was interesting. I can definitely think of different answers for question #3 but why not #4? As I was sitting there, trying hard to reminisce my past, I had to skip that question. 
     I went on to #5 which I now feel bad about my response.  Let me begin by saying that my mother & grandpa were the most influential in my life. I learned from them how to hold on to my goals, how to be safe with my savings, and how to plan for the future and a rainy day.  
     I also interpreted this question as "who was the most influential leader in my educational success." That is not what the question asked but that was how I had read it. 
      Now let me explain how I answered this question. The first thing that came to mind was that I was my own influential leader. The reason I thought this was because I felt like I had the intrinsic drive to succeed and get an education. My parent/grandparents also believed in me but I guess they just knew I would continue my education thus, they wouldn't "push me." They never made sure if I did my homework because they just knew I would. They knew what my educational plans were all along so they never really bothered me with that talk.   But then I thought I can't be my own influential leader, so I erased it and put my mom. As I thought about it, I felt like that was not right (again, I was thinking influencing me with my education not life in general). Then I remembered...Fernando. He has been my influential leader (educationally and in life). He was my role model, my help and my strength. In moments when I wanted to give up, he would push me to keep going. In moments when I just wanted to call it quits, he would remind me of what my goal in life was. I can truly say Fernando has motivated me to finish my education and have my career. But that does not mean that my grandpa and mother did not influence me at all. 
      I guess it's almost like I have to divide my life in two parts: single life, and married life. My grandpa/mom were my influential leaders when I was at home, single. And Fernando has taken over that role since we've married. 
     Now back to question #4. As I went back to answer this question, I began feeling sorry for myself. Other people in my group activity had already finished without thinking much about it. I felt sad for my childhood. I can think of many things that caused me great pride as an adult but not as a child :(. As an adult some of the things that have caused me great pride are having children, graduating from college, having a career (just to name a few). All I can hope for is that my children have many prideful moments in their youth!