This is how a Fox Elementary School teacher is shaping mindsets
I’m a proud product of the ’70s and ’80s. My friends and I ate SPAM, listened to Thriller in our Walkman, and roller-skated in our bell bottoms. We grew up unworried about crime and war and preservatives. Life seemed simpler then. Not a care in the world.
Except for the Jimmy Carter Presidential Physical Fitness Award.
It certainly was a big deal at Edwards Middle School. The buzz surrounding this measure of good health was just like the bustle that happens now around the Georgia Milestone tests. The pressure to perform was enormous, and the drive to receive the coveted certificate signed by the president was quite tangible.
But I never got the award. Despite playing sports since I discovered coordination, the presidential prize always eluded me. I exceeded the standards in all areas but one, my nemesis — the pull-up. If I remember correctly, girls only had to do one, but one I could not do. And so, our fridge never ever saw President Carter’s signature.
Still to this day, I have never done a pull-up, and although I’m alright with that, I sometimes wish for a redo of six, seventh and eighth grades. But if I ever get the chance to visit that pull-up bar again, I want to take Carmen Estes with me.
I heard she is the ultimate in motivators. I heard she works magic with her students. And I heard she gets kids to do what they never imagined doing.
In middle school, I looked at the pull-up bar with intimidation; I was full of fear and paralyzed by doubt. There was no coach jumping up and down beside me screaming “You Got This!” and “You Can Do It!” It was me vs. the bar, and I always cowered to the expectation I had for myself – to dangle limply from the bar. I bet many of Mrs. Estes’s kindergarteners at Fox Elementary have some of the same feelings when they look at an empty sheet of paper or a row of math problems or a storybook. Many are entering a school building for the very first time and, I’m sure, are hearing the roars of fear screaming in their ears.
But, then, there’s the calming, encouraging voice of Mrs. Estes…and the fear subsides. Her students can’t help but be swept away by a classroom atmosphere where trying their best is always good enough. Instead of expecting failure, the Estes kids are conditioned to expect success.
Because, success is a mindset. I imagine the Estes kids often hear a cheerleader’s encouragement. They probably don’t go very long without hearing hope spoken. I bet not a moment goes by when these impressionable 5 year olds don’t hear words of life proclaimed over their doubts and disbeliefs.
That’s what I’ve heard about Mrs. Estes over at Fox Elementary.
I do believe, if I had a Mrs. Estes as my 6th grade P.E. teacher, I would have had that presidential certificate. And that would have started something. A confident mindset that would have met that pull-up bar head on in 7th grade and 8th grade, too. Who knows? Maybe I would have had three certificates signed by Jimmy Carter in my scrapbook and gone on to be an Olympic gymnast.
That’s the influential, life-changing capabilities of a LIFE-speaking teacher like Mrs. Estes. She doesn’t know every fear that enters her classroom. She can’t foresee what each student will become later in life. But she does see one thing very clearly. She sees the opportunity to shower a child with confident stick-with-it-ness, and that, my friend, is a precious gift.
This story was originally published August 21, 2018 at 4:25 PM.