Spinning my wheels?

Transparency moment:
There are many times when I feel like I'm spinning my wheels, unsure of my effectiveness as a teacher. As I'm writing this post, I'm wondering if those times come when I measure myself against the checklists. You know, the ones used to measure educator effectiveness. Or something like that.🤔

But then a student or colleague, unaware of this internal conflict, will say something out of the blue that lets me know that this isn't in vain. Whether it's my approach to the classroom, the kids, or all the other "stuff", it isn't in vain.

I posted a journal prompt yesterday in class. "The best lesson somebody ever taught me was ______. (Explain)" The lesson could be an academic or life lesson, in or out of school. One kid started speaking about how he was taught to have high expectations as a Black man and not to walk in others' perceptions of him. I cosigned. I asked him, just as I asked the others, who taught him that. His response, "You!"