On Being a Teacher
This blog has been in my being for a few weeks now. However,
today, I am sitting in an empty classroom and pondering. The desks are lined,
new welcoming décor adorns the walls, and it is like the calm before the storm,
or the deep breath before a high dive.
Students will be here in a few days, and the stormy journey
will begin. I will challenge them and they will challenge me more. But, for
now, everything is clean and orderly until the students will come in with their
grand ideas and dreams. And I want nothing more than to encourage and nurture
those dreams with them.
You see, I went to school to be a teacher of English, and yet
there are things I haven’t learned.
Like the feeling when
I see an old student who is getting ready for college--and suddenly I feel old
and question "Did I do everything I could to prepare her??" No doubt
she will succeed but did I do everything I could to challenge her enough... To
push her beyond her limits and to know herself in ways she never knew?? I get
roughly 50 minutes a day with these kids. What seemed like a daunting amount of
minutes, to be guiding these kids, is suddenly not enough.
No one prepared me for the high of grading tests and papers
then the drastic drop when a student “didn’t get it.” No one prepared me for
the self-doubt on what I'm doing or not doing to reach that one student.
No one prepared me for the exhaustion that ensues from
teaching. It is a constant giving of oneself, to challenge and be challenged.
No one prepared me for the constant questioning of myself. And, oh, the
overwhelming feeling that I don’t know anything!
No one prepared me for the goodbye---when our time and
journey has come to an end---do they know they will forever be a part of my
heart?? Will they look back with fondness or just see me as "the mean
one?" (Something I am a little proud of, street cred anyone??)
I never realized what a team effort it is to teach, even in
one’s own classroom.
Truth is, these are all things that no one could prepare me
for. Truth is, these are just the beginning of a multitude of lessons that I
will learn as I teach. Truth is, teachers never stop learning, and the day they
do, is the day the pencil wand needs to be handed off.
Teaching isn't what I
do----it's who I am. The diploma I will receive in December is just my set of
wings.
Comments
You'll be fine,
and you'll accomplish your goal for each student.
I'm proud of you
Love dad