Revising the One Giant Selfie Called Life

     If I can be honest with you, I am really bad at taking selfies. Truthfully, my short arms aren't meant for taking them. I've  watched people with long arms effortlessly take selfies without even thinking about it. Quite frankly, taking selfies stresses me out. As soon as I position the camera at the right angle, put my thumb on the button, I have no idea where to look. As a result, my smile seems forced as does the shift in my eyes, slightly turned away from the camera. And so, usually I take an entire series of images just to get one that satisfies me. Of course, this hasn't stopped me from taking selfies. If you look at the framed pictures in my classroom, there are plenty of them. Last year after prom, a few students even posted on Twitter that our selfie improved over time. Needless to say, taking a selfie definitely is a work in progress for me.

     Obviously, I didn't grow up in a generation of selfies. In fact, you just took one photo of a moment and hoped for the best. One of my favorite pictures of my childhood is this photo I took with my dad, who happens to turn 70 this week. I don't remember the moment because I was really young, but I still can feel the joy. The photo isn't perfect; ironically, I'm still not looking at the camera. Had it been a selfie or had my parents had a smart phone, they definitely would have taken another.  

      In this generation of selfie taking and capturing a photo for every moment of our lives--including what we eat for dinner--there's far more revising that can happen. I watched a group of teenagers take a selfie recently, taking the picture four times before they were satisfied by the way everyone looked. I remember my first selfie. It was for my son's fifth birthday party--a ninja party with about a dozen 5 year-old boys (my true act of bravery as a mom and the last birthday party I hosted at my house). As I said earlier, my short arms aren't built for selfies, so I had a hard time getting both of us in the shot. I'm not quite looking at the camera either, but Jack is, well, being Jack.  Needless to say, we took several, resulting in his over-exaggerated expression.

If you think about it,  life is one giant selfie that we constantly revise. We can change our life story by tilting the camera in a slightly different angle. Suddenly our memories alter as does the way we think.  We may not always be looking at the camera, and sometimes our arms fall short of capturing everything we want, but we constantly keep revising.

     Recently, I listened to a colleague being interviewed by a student for a project. She discussed her favorite part of teaching writing as being the revision process because no piece of writing is ever finished. I couldn't agree more, and that got me to thinking about how life is this way, too--we are constantly revising our lives, constantly taking another selfie at a better angle. We are never finished, as there's always room to change and grow.

     In my first few years of teaching,  I was trying to help my students  appreciate poetry by having them write their own original poetry. On the day the poems were due, students were to share what they had written. One of my students who had very few inhibitions when it came to speaking in the classroom, instantaneously raised her hand to read her poem. She stood up at her desk, and began, “The title of my poem is ‘Topless.’”  I automatically stopped her and refused to let her read the poem, assuming that the material in that poem was inappropriate. She was angry and tried to explain, but I wouldn’t let her say a word. I knew her to be somewhat of a class clown. There was no way I was going to allow her to have the stage in my classroom or the last word.

I later read her poem and discovered that poem called “Topless” was about her convertible. And it was a beautiful poem. I definitely made a mistake that day by refusing to let her read that poem. So, the next day, I told the class that we had one more poem to hear. I embraced my mistake and learned to be a little more trusting of my students and that perhaps I need to know a little bit more about them as people before I am so quick to judge. I think back to this "selfie" and the way I revised it often in my teaching. My mistake humbles me and grounds me still to this day. It made me aware of the fact that in teaching, I constantly need to revise my lesson plan or my attitude or my way of thinking to meet the needs of my students. It made me aware that it's okay to make mistakes and also important to step back and evaluate what needs to be changed.

         This past month you read books about racism in IB English. The books were meant to be a "break" in the action of challenging IB literature.  In giving you that break, I also gave you the opportunity to revise history. I asked you to present a video of how we can combat racism in today's society. What I got was some of the best video projects I have seen in twenty years in the classroom. Nic Stone, the author of Dear Martin, one of the books we read, even tweeted "Watch all of these." These videos enabled you to think about a way to revise life--to evaluate what's wrong in this world and explore possibilities of how to change it. And I am certain you definitely will change it.

 That is what I encourage you to think about this month--ways you can revise life to make it better. Seniors, while you might be thrilled about this, I'm saddened by the fact that we only have 32 more classes together. What do you want to change about yourself in those remaining classes before you graduate? What revisions will you make? Maybe it means befriending someone who you've lost touch with since ninth grade. Maybe it means revising your evaporating work ethic. Maybe you'll relax a little more to enjoy the last parts of high school instead of wishing it away and racing to that graduation date. Whatever it is, think about how you can revise the parts of life that need change.

     Two years ago, I asked the thirty seniors I was teaching to live 1% better than the day before. I told them they would be 37 times better if they lived that way for a year. Later that night emails flooded my inbox with comments such as...

"I know this was just a classroom activity, but I do feel like my outlook has changed. Continue your movement, even when it seems easy to quit."

I have continued this movement of trying to improve myself by 1% every single day and convincing students to do the same. It's not always easy for me, but if it was, it wouldn't be meaningful, would it? This month on the two-year anniversary of my 1% movement, I asked you to write anonymous compliments to anyone in the school. Over the past two weeks with the help of some of you, I have been delivering these compliments. As I deliver them, more students write them. It's an unending cycle of positivity that originated due to the actions and desires of change and revision.

     This weekend, I watched the film A Star is Born. I fell in love with this movie and was drawn to the music and the idea of making changes to improve our lives. In one of the songs,"Maybe It's Time," Bradley Cooper's character Jackson sings, "Maybe it's time to let the old ways die / It takes a lot to change your plans / And a train to change your mind."

  Maybe it's time to change the angle--focus differently. Change is not easy, but can be extremely gratifying. Unlike the photograph I took when I was a child with my dad, we have the chance to continuously revise our lives. We have the chance to learn from our mistakes. Maybe it's time. Maybe it's time to change our focus--to find a way to be 1% better than the day before. Maybe it's time to revise what we don't like about our lives. Maybe it's time to take another selfie. I know for me, I will keep revising, keep stretching my arms as I take that selfie and hoping that in at least one shot, I'll be looking at the camera.