When you’re in college, it’s your whole world. It’s all you think and talk about; most of the people around you are going through the same things. Your entire focus is college.

It may not surprise you that, after 28+ years, I remember very little about college. What is surprising, however, is that I could have said the same thing after I’d been out five years. I went through college as a single mom (more on that in the future, I’m sure) so college had to share space in my brain with that. But there is one thing that did resonate enough that I still remember it and apply it to my classroom every year.

I had to take a summer class, an education class of some sort. While I have no memory of the subject matter, I vividly recall one event. The professor was going on with his lesson when suddenly there was a commotion in the front of the room. A bee was buzzing its way around our room and people were reacting. The bee made its way out and we carried on, but not before we all received these words of wisdom: “There are two things that you cannot compete with in the classroom. One is a bee and the other is the first snowfall of the season.”

Little did I know at the time but I would go on to remember that moment every single year of my career, every time a bee enters the room and every first snowfall. It is one of the truest things anyone has ever said. While the rest of college turned out to be fairly irrelevant, that piece of advice kept me from being the cranky teacher who ignores the bee and gets annoyed with the kids, or who angrily closes the blinds when it starts snowing.

Hopefully, you will catch these little moments when they occur. You never know when true education will happen!