Singing in the Mud

In my first week of training with Achievement First Aspire Elementary we listened to a commencement speech given at the University of Texas graduation this past spring. The speech was given by Admiral William H. McRaven, a former Navy Seal. Admiral McRaven spoke on his extremely rigorous Navy Seal training and related those experiences to the uphill battles that we face in life. So as a school team, we each took one lesson that McRaven had referred to and dedicated our first week to it. I don’t even remember what I chose originally, because it quickly changed to “singing in the mud” after my second day of teaching. To give you a background of what this lesson is, here is the excerpt from McRaven’s speech:

The ninth week of training is referred to as “Hell Week.” It is six days of no sleep, constant physical and mental harassment and—one special day at the Mud Flats—the Mud Flats are area between San Diego and Tijuana where the water runs off and creates the Tijuana slue’s—a swampy patch of terrain where the mud will engulf you.

It is on Wednesday of Hell Week that you paddle down to the mud flats and spend the next 15 hours trying to survive the freezing cold mud, the howling wind and the incessant pressure to quit from the instructors.

As the sun began to set that Wednesday evening, my training class, having committed some “egregious infraction of the rules” was ordered into the mud.

The mud consumed each man till there was nothing visible but our heads. The instructors told us we could leave the mud if only five men would quit—just five men and we could get out of the oppressive cold.

Looking around the mud flat it was apparent that some students were about to give up. It was still over eight hours till the sun came up—eight more hours of bone chilling cold.

The chattering teeth and shivering moans of the trainees were so loud it was hard to hear anything and then, one voice began to echo through the night—one voice raised in song.

The song was terribly out of tune, but sung with great enthusiasm.

One voice became two and two became three and before long everyone in the class was singing.

We knew that if one man could rise above the misery then others could as well.

The instructors threatened us with more time in the mud if we kept up the singing—but the singing persisted.

And somehow—the mud seemed a little warmer, the wind a little tamer and the dawn not so far away.

If I have learned anything in my time traveling the world, it is the power of hope. The power of one person—Washington, Lincoln, King, Mandela and even a young girl from Pakistan—Malala—one person can change the world by giving people hope.

So, if you want to change the world, start singing when you’re up to your neck in mud.

The words of admiral McRaven echoed through my mind on that second day of school after what I felt was something disasterous had happened. It was just the start of my second day and I was going around from desk to desk cleaning up the breakfast that our students had just eaten, when I reached for a carton of apple juice on little Monica’s (name changed) desk and accidently knocked it over. Juice quickly started pouring down Monica’s desk and right into her lap. Now Monica, knowing that we sit with our hands folded on our desk, our back straight, and our eyes on the speaker when we are learning, was not sure how to react to the juice that was drenching her skirt. She was trying so hard to be on task that even with juice pouring in her lap that she stayed in scholarly position, probably unsure of whether or not she could break and move away from her desk. Well I quickly noticed this so I reached to push her chair back so that she could avoid the downpour. However, when I did this, my foot caught the chair of the child just in front of Monica’s desk. I fell flat on my face, ripping Kyler’s (name changed) chair right out from under him.

So, at this point, I am lying flat on my face, Monica is still sitting in her desk with juice drenching her, Kyler is on the ground starting to cry, and the whole class is now looking at me trying to figure out what is going on. Not my shiniest moment to say the least. As I lay there for that split second, I started to wonder how I had gotten myself into this, it was only the second day of school and I had already made a complete fool of myself. I had the fluttering thoughts of I’m not cut out for this, why did I think this was a good idea? What have I gotten myself into? And it was in that moment that I remembered the words of Admiral McRaven and realized that I was just about as neck deep in the mud as you can be on the second day of teaching kindergarten, and the only way to change my outlook, was to start singing in that mud.

I tell you, it has not been easy. Bouncing back from that experience and many more struggles that I have had as a first year teacher. Teaching a grade and subject matter that I was just not even close to prepared for has been difficult. There have definitely been difficult days, who’d have thought kindergarten would be such a difficult grade to teach. I have to say I have so much more love and respect for my mother having raised 7 kids. It is so challenging teaching kids how to do some many things that just seem to come natural to me and others. I forget that natural habits are still things that we have learned at one point or another and 4 and 5 year olds are just so innocent and just really don’t know a lot of things and I am responsible for teaching them. It is a pretty daunting task! But I have learned to sing in that mud! When my lesson may be going horribly and I have kids running around and being disruptive, I remember to look for the positive and sing my way through it. Then I see students like little Candace (name changed) with her big brown eyes and bright smile beaming up at me, I feel a bit more strength to sing through it and get through the lesson, or the day, or the week. Whatever it may be I am learning to sing in the mud!