“You’re like…really pretty”

I can’t tell you how many times I have watched that scene in Mean Girls and laughed hysterically at how shallow they all were. That doesn’t stop me from wanting to hear the same sentence…sounds dumb doesn’t it? No matter how many times we say “I don’t give a flying duck(autocorrect) what they think about me”  we still care. It is human nature to seek the approval of others. Especially at this super fun point of life called the beginning of adulthood. There are so many people we want to impress; our parents, our coworkers, our friends, our friends’ friends, and that cute guy we see across the bar.

Are you ready for the harsh truth…its never going to happen. Its annoying isn’t it. It occurred to me one day this year when I was talking a student through a meltdown. “The other kids don’t like me….they make fun of me….they call me ugly…they talk about me behind my back.” All of these were phrases I said or fears that I had when I was her age and as an adult. As I’m talking to this young lady and trying to comfort her I said “Baby girl, you will always  have people who don’t like you in life. The people who really matter, the ones are always there for you will be proud of you and they will love you for who you are no matter what. The only opinion that really matters is your own. You need to love you. If you are happy with the person you are then be proud of that and stop trying to hide behind the standards of others.” Wait what…..did I just say that? Well damn, I guess I need to start taking my own advice.

Don’t get me wrong; I work in a field where being considered “cool” can go a long way with building relationships. We are told in every (completely annoying) professional development how important it is to develop relationships with the students. “If they don’t like you, they aren’t going to perform for you.” This was hard for me. I wasn’t cool when I was in middle school and now I need to be cool for a bunch of kids who think a Razr phone is lame. It took me a couple of years to realize that I didn’t need to be cool and I don’t need these kids to like me. What they should tell us is that you need to build a relationship so the students see you as human. That level of openness fosters respect and that is what you should really seek from your students. Once I started allowing my students to see that I was human, that I have fears and flaws everything seemed to flow a lot easier.

Sharing these things with my students allowed me to take a careful look at myself and the things that I really needed to do. I spend a lot of time trying to get my students to appreciate their own self worth but I was not leading by example at all. I was holding myself to an indefinable, unattainable standard.  What does it even mean to be pretty? Who gets to decide that? I read somewhere that finding one new thing to love everyday could change an entire outlook. Since then I have realized that looking like a model is not something I am really interested in. Instead I want to feel strong. I want to be compassionate. I want to be independent. I want to be a role model. I want to be me.

Screw pretty….I’m me and I’m freaking awesome (most of the time…just don’t ask when I’m hangry).