I’ve come to call my 2014-15 academic year as “The Year of Rejection and Failure.” As someone in her 15th year of education, I’ve experienced my fair share of professional success and recognition. This year has been quite different. I’ve found myself applying to different things only to get the dreaded rejection notification again and again and again. These rejections are failures that I am not accustomed to experiencing. One doesn’t experience a lot of failures when they do they are doing the same thing again and again and this has been my comfort zone in recent years. Motivated, inspired, and encouraged by my supervisor, colleague, and friend, I reached, tried, and applied for things way outside my comfort zone this year and fell short on paper. In the process, I have learned and experienced more than I could ever imagine in a single academic year and nine weeks still remain! So many opportunities for learning. If someone told me last year I’d be participating in a blogging challenge, I would have called them crazy.  What a difference a year makes especially when one has a champion encouraging them.

Now, I can look back and be grateful each time I have been turned down. Each one has driven choices that I’ve made subsequently and it is that process that has generated growth. I am a much stronger educator today and continue to expand my comfort zone by risking continuous learning with inevitable failures. Everyone deserves a champion who makes it safe to fail so they can grow beyond what they thought possible. My hope is that I can return the favor and be that champion for someone else.