Lucy, Media Center Specialist, Mom of 2, SC
My advice for a good life:
“Don’t sweat the small stuff.”
Lucy is full time media center specialist at #Wando High School. She spends her days tirelessly working with students to get them interested in reading. Her strategy is not to force students to read, but to INSPIRE them to do so. She does not think it is efficient to make a child read something they do not want to. She believes in the importance of EXPLORING.
Lucy was interviewed as part of a #schoolpartnership #studentvoice project with REENVISIONED, in which students interview each other and adults in their lives, and reflect together on school and what makes a good life. She was interviewed by her student, Erin.
Tell me about yourself, anything! Name, age, special qualities…
My name is Lucy, I am 37 years old, and I am a media specialist at Wando High School. Uhh… I’m married and I have 2 little girls. One is 3 and one is 6 years old.
What is the most important thing in your life?
Oh gosh… Probably my family, my husband, and my children because that is my lifeline, and I don’t know if I could do life without them. I love home each night to my girls… taking them to soccer, making them dinner. It is the little things that are important and these little things that we sometimes to forget to appreciate.
The important thing in life is the little everyday things we do with our family. However, my job is very important to me because it is what I have worked for and it gives me the opportunity to watch students do the best they can and work hard…
I love my job because I get to watch students EXPLORE and discover themselves and that is very important to me.
What do you value about your life and why is that important?
I value my relationships with people. I have a lot of close friendships that I have worked on over the years and that is something that I really value because that takes work and exploration. This is important because
material things are fun, but they cannot hug you and get you through hard times. The relationships you make with people are more important than the material things we have.
I think we should value people rather than things. In the end, we will have appreciated the ones who have been there for us and stood through it all, and been PRESENT. We should value the ability to EXPLORE relationships with others and establish them.
We should be moved and INSPIRED to have relationships not intrinsically motivated to have more material things.
What makes a good life?
WOW… I think being humble and appreciative of the things that you have makes for a good life. And being able to laugh and not sweat the small stuff is important in order to live a truly good life. We should stop and smile and have job and appreciation instead of stopping to stress or get mad. Being able to be happy and have job in this world is truly living a good life. And exploring the world and taking the chance and opportunity makes this life worth living.
Do you think people, parents, the community, teachers and students here at Wando agree with your response to “what makes a good life”?
I think for the most part they do… but ya know we live in Mt. Pleasant which is kind of like a keeping up with the Jones’ type place where people put a lot of value in material possessions, but for the most part I think our students especially are great kids and they have their head on straight. I think some of our students think they have a good life, but they fail to realize the importance of going to school and the importance of the little things. Some are caught up in this uh Mt. Pleasant bubble we have to deal with.
Why did you become a librarian?
So I always loved to read and I knew I wanted to work in education, I just didn’t know if I wanted to become a teacher because ya know grading papers and that kind of stuff did not sound fun to me. SO I either wanted to become a guidance counselor or a librarian and I had a really good librarian in elementary school and I really liked her and I was like her little helper so I valued that experience and I was inspired to become a librarian and change the lives of students like she changed mine.
What is your mission? Do you want to change the lives of students here at Wando?
My mission is to help students here at Wando read and help them read something that they want to read instead of forcing them. I think that a lot of students here still do read, but I want students to be more informed and think of reading as an EXPERIENCE rather than a chore because that is what it is thought of… a chore. I want to change that.
Is there a quote you like to live by?
“Don’t sweat the small stuff.”
Overall, what did you think of this interview?
I thought it was great! I thought you did a great job and I really enjoyed this experience!
10,000 Stories. One Shared Vision.
REENVISIONED is a national movement to redefine the purpose of school. We believe schools should foster flourishing individuals and a thriving democratic society. But what does it mean to thrive or flourish?
To answer this, we're building the world's largest collection of stories about what it means to live good lives and the role schools should play in helping create them: 10,000 stories from people across the country. We'll use the stories to learn about our shared values and dreams and to create a new vision for why we send our children to school.
We work with people like YOU across the country: Catalysts - individuals, classrooms, schools, and community organizations - who interview people in their communities and foster empathy nationwide by sharing the stories on our website and social media: Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook (@reenvisioned).