A Reflection on the Mountain We Climbed

I'm Brian Martin, a second grade teacher who find so much joy and fulfillment in what I do. Being in the classroom for almost 20 years, I know all about the time, effort and energy that you are continuously pouring into those you serve. That's why each week, I'm going to bring you an inspiring message to give you a little joy, and help fill your cup back up. Thank you for being here. And welcome to the teaching champions podcast. What's going on everybody, I hope this finds you striving and thriving and doing absolutely amazing. This week, let's take a look back at the year that was Now many of you have already finished your school year. But I'm still going to be going strong until the end of June. And that's all right. This school year has looked different for everyone. Some of you have been face to face all year, some hybrid. Some, like myself have been 100% remote all year. And many of you have taught in the assortment of all these. And the one thing that's constant though, it wasn't easy. There were some tough days, there were days of frustration, some sleepless nights, moments where that blood pressure skyrocketed and so much more. But I'm gonna say this. There are some moments of joy. moments where time slowed down. And we shared last with our students moments where our students had that those aha moments, and we got to see it click. We had moments where we bonded and we created memories that we'll never forget. And don't forget about the new skills that you have the things that you did, that you may have never dreamed of doing before the school year started. And it's always important to remember, sometimes it's in the toughest of moments, when you see the most growth and you create the strongest memories. And how we choose to look back on this year is always going to be our choice. And I want to share with you an extremely special memory that I have with my dad. Now my dad enjoys the challenge himself. And for his 70th birthday, he decided that he would like to go up to the Adirondacks and climb whiteface mountain. Now what face is 4867 feet high. So it's not the biggest mountain. But it's 70 years old. It's no joke. And if you want to consider we've never hiked any mountains before, it's a pretty good hike. So we made arrangements, we cruised up to the Adirondacks the night before, and we get up bright and early the day of the climb. And it's a beautiful day perfect temperature, the sun was shining, and we get started. And for the next several hours, we would hike along the trail. And there wasn't a single person in sight. It was just the two of us walking in laughing. And every now and then we would take a break and grab a drink of water. And we eventually came to a fairly rocky section and the rocks on this section. They're about waste time. And we had to pull ourselves up over the rocks. And my dad was behind me. And I get over the this patch of rocks. And I turned around to see if he needed a hand. I saw my dead grandma onto a small branch of a nearby tree to help pick himself up. The branch broke. And my dad fell backwards in his leg became stuck between two huge rocks. his glasses go flying and he's laying backwards. And I rushed over to him to see how he was doing. And luckily, he hadn't hit his head. And he's fully conscious. And we were able to get his leg out from between the rocks and find his glasses. And after a quick check over and outside of a few scrapes. He was all right. We sat and we laughed about this near death experience. And I say near death for one reason. My sister was getting married two weeks after this trip. And if in that moment, he had broken his leg or caused any injury to his knee that would have prohibited him from walking her down the aisle, then I do not want to even imagine the wrath that would have occurred. And I joked with him, then no matter what, I would get him off that mountain. But after that, it was every man for himself. Because there's no way I'm calling home to tell my mom or sister, that news. And it made for a good laugh. And after a few minutes, we continued our climb in this day started to take away the path, it took us along some more ups and downs. And there was one point when my dad sat down on a phone tree. When he said, he didn't know if he could go fast enough to make it to the top in order to have enough time to make it down in daylight. He told me that if we had to, he would let me go ahead, and he would just wait for me. And I wasn't hearing that. And he stood up, and he kept moving along. And A while later, we could see the peak. And with a little more pep in our step, we made it to the top in that view, it was so amazing. And it was just a special moment to share with my dad. But honestly, that's not the one moment that I will truly hold on to. That's still to come. And we spent some time at the summit Nam, we decide that it was time for us to turn around and walk back down. And after a few hours of walking down, it started to rain. So we whipped out our ponchos and continued to walk down the path. And about two thirds of the way down the mountain. There was a moment that I will truly never forget. I've been walking a few paces in front of my dad, and I didn't hear his footsteps behind me anymore. And I turned around, and a few feet behind me, I saw my dad gazing back at the path we had just walked. He was just standing there looking at the path leading up the mountain. And I asked him, I said, What's going on you all right. And he said something that I'm never gonna forget. I'm just admiring the path we walked. I can't believe we did that. Then that right there is one of the most special moments of my life. Seeing my dad look that path along the mountain he had just climbed and taking it all in. It was beautiful. And this year, you climbed your own mountain, it will be easy to look at the moments where you fell. And it felt as if your leg was trapped between two rocks, moments when you were rained on moments where you didn't know if you were going to be able to make it. But you did. You learn new skills you connected you inspired you built resilience, and so much more. Choose to look back on this year and not wish it away. But take a minute, look back, soak it in and be proud of the mountain that you climbed. Thank you for supporting the podcast and being part of this teaching champions community. It's all about supporting each other. We support we encourage we learn from one another and we pick each other up. And if you like the content in this podcast, I'm doing a morning message every day in Instagram stories, just to give a little motivation to start the day out. Right. And that can be found at teaching champions podcast. So check it out. Let me know what you think. And always remember, whether you're from rural America, to urban America, to Canada, to Spain to Bahrain, we're all on that same team. We're all on that same mission. And we're always better to get my challenge for you this week is to do a little reflection, a little journaling. you've climbed many mountains in your life, not just this school year, you found you stumble, you may have thought you would never get through those moments. But you did. You survived 100% of every tough moment that you've ever faced. So take a few minutes. Reflect on your strength, your grit, your perseverance. Take time to remind yourself of how truly strong and resilient you are. Keeping being amazing, my friend, and as we go out into this week, may you step into your strength may step into your shine, and let's build these champions up. Have a great week. Everybody