Yesterday Bear had his 3 year old check-up at the doctor´s office. It was right after school, so I had very little time to buzz to the sitter and then to the appointment. His daycare friends went ¨pretend fishing¨ earlier in the day and ended up getting soaked (all clothing and outerwear included).

Long story short, Bear went to the doctor´s appointment without socks or a coat. All I could think of was, What will the doctor say?! What will people think?! I jokingly texted this to a friend, ending with ¨#hotmessexpress¨.  But…no one even noticed. No one said anything except the nurse, who didn´t even bat an eye, just remarked ¨Oh, look…no shoes for you!¨ If they did notice, I would have said ¨They are all wet because he went pretend fishing with friends!¨ And really, how great is that? An enjoyable imaginary experience with friends for my toddler. How about #perfect? With the mess comes the beauty.

Today we held a Genius Hour Celebration where our 7th grades (SO VERY AWESOMELY) shared their Genius Hour Products. They had to choose from 1 of 6 questions and could answer it any way they wanted. It was blood, sweat, tears, and exhaustion for about 2 weeks but I´m proud to say that the work resulted in 113 different geniuses. We opened up our classroom doors for staff and students to celebrate. My teammates and I were a little nervous; would our colleagues see what we saw? Would they see the beauty within the mess? Would they see the risk-taking? Would they see the effort our kids put forth?

The truth is that no one will see exactly what we see because we are with our students every day, while a visitor sees them for a moment. Visitors see the slice of pie, not the entire pie. But whether we are visitors or hosts, we must embrace the mess. I can´t think of anything great that was delivered perfectly polished, without grit or bouts of failure along the way. Not only must we model this for our students-but also for each other. There is no such thing as the perfect classroom, perfect teacher, or perfect lesson plan. There is beauty along the way if you choose to see it. No doubt a ticket on the Hot Mess Express will take you there.