Be positive: Lessons learned from my role model

By Dennis Essig
College of Education
Long Island University, C. W. Post
March, 2011

In this class we had our discussion about our role models. We either had to bring a picture of the person to class and tell the class who they were and why they were our role model. I felt this activity was great to help understand why role models are important, but also very touchy. By being able to identify who our role model is and distinguish what makes them a good role model, will help me understand what I need to do to become a role model for my students. Before this I never really gave much thought into a role model besides a sports icon.

For this discussion I brought in a picture of my mother to share. It was a tough choice to decide on whom to actually talk about because I have had so many great role models in my life. I chose my mother because she is the one that has made the biggest impact on who I am today. Some parts about this are tough to talk about, but I always try to take something good from anything especially the bad things. I can’t talk about everything she has done for me or all the reasons why she’s so important because I would be here forever.

My mother has done just about anything I could ever ask for. She had the tough task of being a single mom with three wild boys, who would test her patience to the end. One of the things I really try to take from her is how she lost the love of her life, while she had three little kids to care for and didn’t let it drag her down. My oldest brother was 10 at the time so she had the lifelong task of raising three boys alone. Some people would simply discover a negative attitude towards life because of the situation and just give up totally. My mother did exactly the opposite, she cared for us and raised us extremely well. There were so many sacrifices she needed to make like giving up hobbies and working more. For someone to give up free/fun time and work more is a big deal, that’s a person’s time for themselves.

I feel she may have wanted to make my dad proud of what she did and used that as her motivation to be a great mom. She took a bad situation and made it positive which is something I have always tried to do in my life because that’s how she raised us. It’s much easier to sit there and say “my life sucks” when something bad happens, but if you take good out of it in some way either by learning and developing from it or using it as motivation, you have made a negative situation becoming positive. I also feel I developed my work ethic from my mom because I work hard and when I do work it’s done well.

I want to try and carry these examples my role model set for me into my classroom so I can make an impact on my students. If a student fails a test that isn’t good but there is so much positive that can be taken from it. I don’t want them to think its ok to fail, just simply that it’s something that may happen in life and if you work hard you can do anything you set your mind to, Just make it positive!