Learning to be a SuperHERO

Shelly Webb

         

          Being a mother of two girls I developed a deep knowledge of the many woes and triumphs of the Disney Princesses. I was greeted daily by posters of ‘Sleeping Beauty’, ‘Belle’, ‘Princess Jasmine’, ‘Cinderella’ and ‘Snow White’. We owned every VHS in which these fine ladies were featured and read lots of stories about their exciting love lives. I also gained a keen understanding about ‘Barbie’, ‘Skipper’, ‘Ken’, all the American Girl dolls and Polly Pocket. The greatest lesson that I learned through this was that I should have purchased stock in Disney and the other companies pushing these products because then today I could look at all those purchases as an ‘investment’ and rest easy. Instead I find myself trying to justify those purchases by interesting my one-year-old grandson in Barbie’s little skateboard or Jasmine’s flying carpet, which I can tell, annoys my son-in-law.

          I was blessed with my girls and they are beautiful and amazing. I am glad I have a grandSON today because I realize I missed out on a lot of boy stuff when my girls were growing up. For example, I don’t know a thing about the ‘Power Rangers’, the teenage mutant turtles, or the “X-Men”…are they good or evil by the way? And if not for my awesome friend, Sandy (who had two boys) I would have missed out on the most important and life changing men besides my husband…BATMAN and SPIDERMAN!

          My girls were not into superheroes when they were young, and as a result I turned down many movie invites. Thank goodness the ‘Dark Knight’ had three parts and I finally relented and agreed to accompany my friend to part-three. I was reluctant and went into it thinking, “ugh I hope this isn’t a long movie”! BUT… I not only loved it, I saw it two more times in the next couple weeks and bought the first two movies of the series. I also bought the Spiderman Movies, saw Superman and Iron Man. This completely changed me into a SuperHERO freak, not quite on the same level as Sheldon Cooper…but close.

          Now imagine my excitement when our principal announced that the theme for Warsaw Elementary this year will be: “Be Someone’s SuperHERO” H=Helpful, E=Energetic, R=Respectful, O=Optimistic! How awesome is this?

          A SuperHERO spends a lot of time ‘rescuing people’ and who needs rescued more than kids? Some may need, rescued from boredom, some from a bad day, some, from a forgotten lunch sitting back on the kitchen counter, some from lost homework or a failed test. Some may even need rescued from ‘themselves’, or a bad attitude or arrogance or bullying or being a bully. The point is we all need rescued from time to time and I will be in a perfect position to rescue and make a difference.

          A SuperHERO is someone you admire and trust, I hope my students will admire and trust me. Creating a positive relationship with them honestly means more to me than the curriculum, whether that’s wrong or right, I’m not sure, but relationship has to be the number one goal in my opinion. Without relationship, respect and trust, why would they even care to listen to anything I have to say?

          When you believe and know that someone genuinely cares about you, you will listen to them; when someone takes a risk for you, you will respect them; when you really matter to someone, they become your SuperHERO.

          I am excited because even though I don’t have this ‘common core’ things completely down and I am still learning about assessments, technology, differentiation and a ton of other education terms---I’ve got the SuperHERO background completely covered!

And just like Batman I’m sure I will encounter a ‘joker’ or two, like Superman I’m sure I will meet my Lex Luther…..but I have one thing Batman, Superman and all the others lacked… I have ‘a no recess card’, so I’m sure I’ll be just fine until I win any little villains over with my super charm!