Tuesday, December 13, 2016

It matters

We're about one and a half years in, and I keep getting the comment, "How are things going? I assume better? I haven't seen much on your blog recently."

Okay, by "keep getting," probably like my grandma and one friend, but, hey, that's my target audience anyways.

I've been thinking about what to say, and I suppose that I have nothing super urgent to say testifies that YES, THINGS ARE GOING A LOT BETTER.

So, to share with you the bright side of my job, here are 10 things I've learned from/about teaching:

1. Poking ceiling tiles with a selfie stick will result in them cracking on your head
2. You are expected to be a fount of sanitary napkins
3. You are expected to be a fount of money to pay for the above, plus snacks for all the incentives you're supposed to create, plus normal classroom supplies, plus a classroom library, plus all the causes the school is always raising money for and donating to
4. When you report a broken bookshelf, the executive director and business manager will show up in your classroom and spend 40 minutes attempting to fix it
5. When students tell you your door is broken and won't let them out, they aren't always joking
6. There are many, many dumb questions
7. "Can I touch your hair?" is a common question
8. Filters don't get installed in human brains until the age of...wait...election...never mind....
9. Teenagers will kill for stickers
10. It is possible to be shorter than the laptop cart and still push it

And some heart win moments:

1. "Ms. Vander Haak don't play."
2. "You've got us to like reading!"
3. Hugs in the hallway from my old students
4. *Offered side hug to student back after break* --> *squeal of excitement*
5. "Being a teacher must be hard. The students love you, but they don't always like you."
6. My little ELL students actually TALKING and READING when they barely whisper outside of my class
7. "You have to write a thank you note to a teacher." "Can I write it to you?"
8. "You and Mr. Vander Haak are goals."
9. "When I become a nurse, I'm going to thank you." "What about your science teachers?" "You need science to be a nurse? Maybe I'll do something else then...."
10. "I just put all these paragraphs together, and they make an essay?! You tricked me into writing an essay?!?!"
Bonus: "What's your favorite book?" "Wintergirls." "That you just read for independent reading last quarter?" "Yeah--to be honest, it's the only book I've ever read all of."

It suddenly hit me yesterday how much my job MATTERS. No matter how bad I feel my day went, it never feels pointless. Even if all I accomplished was teaching 60 sophomores how to use a semi colon, I just taught 60 sophomores how to use a semi colon! It matters in the emotional/social support sense, too, of course.

It mattered the day after the election. My first class of the day was ESL, and my internal debate about whether or not to mention the election was rendered pointless when my usually quiet student ran into the room yelling with concerns. They had nearly all stayed up to 2am with their parents watching as the results came in, and they were all terrified. I scrapped half of my lesson for the day and spent a large portion of the period going over checks and balances and all the things the new president-elect could not do--primarily, that he could not make any of them "walk back to Mexico." A conversation with my sophomores (a slightly different demographic) later in the day included reassurances that Trump would not reinstate segregation or close all Mexican restaurants.

It matters when I drive a kid home, or give out hugs, or push a student (figuratively!), or a student says, "I love you" just to hear it back. It matters when students get excited about mastering new content, even when they start screaming about who won the vocabulary review game. It matters when students new and old stop by to chat with me. It matters when old ones ask for college recommendation letters. It matters when I bandage up a small child's knee. It matters when I call a mother to tell her that her son got college level on his reading test, and the next day he thanks me for helping him convince his mother that he should go to college. It matters when they want to hear my answers to the journal prompts. It matters when they bring their new baby brothers to show me. It matters when they are so proud of getting their spelling words right. It matters when they leave me notes on their tests and rubrics. It matters even when I hand out sanitary napkins or push apart students attempting to fight each other or yell my voice away.

It matters, and so I show up every day. "You take your job too seriously," one student told me. "Why can't you ever take a day off?"

Here's what I should have said: "Because you're worth it."