Empower by John Spencer and A.J. Juliani was a book I literally couldn’t put down and could have tweeted all of it. It was not a heavy read but it offered me questions about my teaching that was a springboard for many of my own. It has left me feeling inspired and energised at a time when I felt I was beginning to stumble.

For over a year, I have been trying to transform my teaching and my classroom. My aim was to engage my students so they could become confident self-regulated learners. I was taking a risk. I was embarking on a new realm of education. It was a direction I knew I needed to guide my students to take. I wanted them to have a voice, be creative and own their learning while they embraced the road bumps on the way. Was this feeling of stumbling based on my fears it was too left field? I mean, what if I was seen as being a neglectful teacher because I was not micromanaging every aspect of their learning?

All my previous hesitations re-emerged when reading, but this time it was with a renewed perspective, an inspired one. I was encouraged that what I was doing was definitely on the right path. I was reinvigorated that others were also on this journey – I was not alone. Perhaps I was jumping in too deep and trying too much at once. Perhaps my fear of failing was starting to hold myself and my students back. Either way, I found myself eager to try again and forge forward on my journey to empower students.

The Japanese proverb “Fall down seven times, stand up eight” comes to mind and has me wondering. Falling and getting back up is a natural process. We did this all the time growing up: when we learned to talk, walk, eat and play. At some point however, we seem to have grown out of this. Fear seems to have taken over and we have learnt to make excuses to avoid stepping too far outside the box. Perhaps we thought we were too small to make a difference. My response to this: Have you ever tried sleeping in a room with a mosquito? A small change can make a big difference and as John and A.J. suggest, “try it for just one day.” Yes, we need to step out of our comfort zone and start with one small change. After all, as Walt Disney once said, “If you can dream it, you can do it!” We should not let anything hold us back.

Whatever this change is, embrace it despite the obstacles or falls along the way. We must fall down seven times, stand up eight” to achieve our goals. We must overcome the fear of failing and celebrate every hurdle encountered. We must learn to listen to our intuition and follow our ‘flow’ – Most importantly, we must allow our students to do this also.

Life is about learning lessons, not repeating same mistakes. Mistakes are not failures but failings we can grow from. If you fall and don’t get back up, the only path left is defeat. Failure. However, if you get back up there is still hope. Failing is therefore a springboard forward. The fight to succeed is important. It is about adjusting what you are doing to achieve the desired goal. To do this, you must be creative in your thinking, open to many possibilities, and essentially have an entrepreneurial mindset. Thomas Edison daringly revealed “I never once failed at making a light bulb. I just found 99 ways not to make one.” Imagine is he didn’t ‘stand back up’ that last time?

“Fall down seven times, stand up eight” is an experience we want to inspire in our students. The students we teach will in fact create the jobs we cannot yet conceive. They are going to need to be creative, persistent in the face of setbacks and self-managers not only their time but also their goals. Should we not then be guiding our students in this process as early as possible? Only then will they have the resilience to face these challenges with confidence.

So, what is holding us back?

Whether it is our pride, our experience or current attitude, we need to be brave and ask our students to be brave too.

Empower has inspired me to listen to my heart and continue my journey to transform the lives of my students. Will I succeed? Hopefully. Will I fall along the way? Absolutely. The important thing is for me to embrace the times I am failing so that when I stand back up I am prepared to take another step towards achieving my goals. With any luck, my students will experience the same. Bruce Lee once summed up the role of a teacher, one that John and A.J. present in their book, and it’s a nice quote to bring my reflection to a close:

“A teacher is never the giver of truth. He is a guide, a pointer to the truth that each student much find himself.”