Never Give Up! (SOLS)

This week I started playing my flute again.  I played the flute throughout middles school and high school.  After that, I grew tired of it and didn't pick it up again.  A few years ago, I encouraged my daughter to take band, hoping that she would play the flute and learn to love it as I had.  Unfortunately, that didn't happen.  I was constantly reminding her to practice, I paid for extra lessons over the summer, and was present at every school performance.  Still, she didn't show much interest in learning to play the flute, and I finally gave up.  That was a couple of years ago.  I remember reassuring my husband that this flute purchase was not in vein.  That I would take the flute and learn to play it again.  That it would become MY flute.

I dug out my old flute music, along with the music books I had purchased for my daughter, and I began to practice again.  I started reviewing the notes and a lot of what I knew started to come back to me.  I'm still in the beginning stages of playing the flute, and I'm nowhere near as good as I used to be.  However, I know that little by little, I'll get better.  The more I pick up that flute and actually practice, the better I'll become.

All of this reminds me of my first grade readers.  At the start of the school year, many of them were excited but apprehensive about reading.  Could they do it?  Would reading be difficult?  How much reading would they be required to do?  I'm sure those are some of the questions that went through there heads as they embarked on their reading journeys.   Those are the same questions that are going through my head as I embark on this flute playing journey.  Months have gone by and most of my first graders are very good readers, and all of them, every single one, has shown a tremendous amount of reading growth.  Some have had to work extra hard to make the progress they have shown, but they stuck it out.  Reading success is an important achievement for first graders.  It's the grade where students show the biggest reading growth.

If my first graders can work so hard at reading, I can certainly work as hard to learn to play this flute again.  Like them, I must demonstrate determination, desire, enthusiasm, and a positive attitude toward learning.  Most of all, I can't give up.  Thank you first graders for teaching me another important lesson.  Never give up!