“Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome.” ― Arthur Ashe
This past weekend our little family piled in the car for my first indie author fair. I did not want to participate in it because I thought it would be awkward and embarrassing and I didn’t tell anyone at all about it (okay except my friend who lives out of state because she’s too far to come!). I just have one self-published book from a few years back and I don’t know anything about author fairs, so I thought I was quite likely to be the bumpkin of the ball. Which, it turns out, I was. Hahaha, however, it was a surprisingly great time. I met some interesting, very nice and encouraging people, and overall learned quite a lot. (Tablecloth: A must; Self-introductory banner: Definitely a perk; Bookstand: Sooooo helpful with the professionalism. Details, details! I had none of those details, FYI.)
Yet, despite my bumpkin-ness, I really left feeling motivated and encouraged.
In education, the learning journey and the outcomes must go hand-in-hand. If the journey is not done well, then the learning destination is going to fall short, and I loved being able to both motivate and encourage my students in their journeys to reach desired outcomes. This was not always easy, and actually was becoming more difficult by the time I left the classroom to be a stay-at-home mom, but it was certainly not impossible.
One of the wonderful things about ELA is that the destination does not always need to be reached the same way. In fact, the destination doesn’t even need to be the same destination. Of course, there are concrete right and wrong answers when taking a quiz and critical thinking must be applied when analyzing, but, when it comes to writing and discussions, so long as a student could successfully argue their point while using the text to support their point, then I could give them credit because they were using the skills of thinking, of looking into the text, of dissecting the information and sharing it with the class or myself. It takes a lot of work for students to reach that point.
It also takes a lot of motivation and encouragement. Motivation to want to prove their point well, motivation to dive back into the text, be it fiction or nonfiction, and encouragement that it’s okay to be wrong so long as they learn from the mistakes and then keep moving forward.
I really enjoyed that part of ELA. It’s so nice when you’re working with a text in the classroom and it sparks further, independent research from students. Even if it’s just one student! To help instill that spark of curiosity, of motivation, ahhhhhhh. That is a gratifying outcome for us as educators, indeed!
I left the author fair feeling so motivated that I finally completed my fourth Greek myth resource. Finally! “The Golden Touch,” Nathaniel Hawthorne’s rendition of King Midas, is available in full unit on my TpT store. However, I have placed the 23 comprehension questions in my Free Little Resource Library here, which makes for a great emergency sub plan, or just if you need something for a rainy day.
While my author fair day, with six novel sales, was a massive success as far as I am concerned, as Ashe said, the doing, the participating in, was definitely the more important part.
Though I must admit, I would certainly not have ended up going if my husband had not encouraged me so much. He also sneakily, and lovingly, told a few friends and family so they could come out to witness my literary bumpkin-ness, I mean show support, hahaha.
Happy Teaching!
M.D. Saints
Reading the Rapids
Liberty Dog Writing Co.