Trying Again

A reflective fondness has been creeping up on my lately. I find myself thinking things like, "Wow, I have such a great job, that I get to read student journals," or, "I can't believe people will share things like this with me. Being a teacher is awesome." That just sounded super trite and unbelievable, right? Of course, these thoughts are mixed in with "Only 25 days of school left" and "Why can't this year just be done?!?! I am so over these kids."

But maybe it's only as I'm about to lose my first babies that I can fully appreciate the honor it is to teach them everyday.

Today was cake day at school. Once a month one of the teachers uses the hospitality fund (that we all paid into) to buy cakes to celebrate that month's teacher birthdays. For some reason (perhaps the fact that several of the teachers, including me, were eating cake while on lunch duty) my juniors discovered that it was cake day, and congregated around the teacher's lounge door in the passing between lunch and 6th period. They kept trying to sneak in to coerce (that's one of our vocabulary words this week! I feel proud using it, even though I'm now--EEK!--23 years old) me into giving them cake. When all else failed, a student threatened, "If you don't give us cake, we'll torture you when we come to your class!" At the time, that sounded ominous, partially because this class will come together to torture teachers and partially because it's unannounced observation week, and that would just happen to me. But upon reflection, the entire ordeal is hilarious. I get to work with these kids everyday! And they crack me up everyday. Sometimes because I have to choose between laughing or crying, but sometimes just because life is funny, and maybe I need them to show me that.

Third period a tenth grader broke my stapler (again), and my first thought was, "Oh, I'll have to get --- to fix that 7th period when I have him." So, --- kid walks in 7th period, and I ask him to fix my stapler, and he's pleased that I remembered his awesome fix-it skills (he's previously fixed my computer and pencil sharpener), and then he and another kid fight over who actually fixed the stapler.

The 11th graders took the ACT yesterday. For the two months before that, I had been reviewing for the English and reading tests once a week or so in class. Today I caught one of them in the hall and asked, "How was the ACT?"

"Kind of hard. Except for your English parts! Those were easy, because you gave us all those packets."

"You complained the whole time I tried to review for the ACT."

"Yeah...sorry about that."

And that is the glory of teaching. Yes, they all complain in the short-term. But every once in a while you catch a glimmer of the good it will actually do in the long-run. Like that maybe my annoying insistence that my juniors practice reading comprehension and study subjective vs. objective pronouns may have raised their ACT scores a point or two.

Also, today when I got on a 10th grader about not doing her work, she told me, "You're one of only two teachers that care about us."

"Earlier this year you told me I acted like I didn't care."

"Yeah...sorry, I was having a bad day."

And earlier this week, a student complained to me, "This is the only class I have to try in to get an A. I go home and cry about it!" Which sounds terrible. But I'm going to take it in a good way. Yes, you should have to put in effort to get an A.

There's this quote I found on Pinterest in the summer to encourage David: "Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow" (Mary Anne Radmacher). I think about that quote a lot this year. I also think about the definition of insanity as trying the same thing over again and expecting different results. Perhaps I am bravely insane, or insanely brave.

Here's to trying again tomorrow -
Anneke