Teaching Has Changed Me

You have bad days, and yesterday was one, you have good days; thankfully today was one, and so-so days, but good days remind me why I l-o-v-e being a teacher. After school today I talked to one of my honors students about her writing potential. I explained to her how I tear her papers apart because she is so talented, and has the potential to get better and better. She appreciates it and it is fun to work with her on her writing and really work on fine-tuning it. This is one of the reasons I like teaching honors classes because they care about their work and the work you put into critiquing their work. I love helping students get better.

I equally love working with my low-acheivers because when you get through to them it is even that much more rewarding. Today was an all-around good day, my regular kids gave some of their best performances today as well. Days like today often make me think of the ways being a teacher has changed me, and here are a few:

1- I am infinetly more patient (and yet I am not nearly patient enough)

2- I have infinetly more empathy and compassion for other's weaknesses than I had before.

3- I have had my eyes opened to the amazing amount of hardship and struggle these kids have to deal with in their lives.

4- I have become a pencil-pincher. No matter where I am I pick up stray pencils and pens off of the ground to put in my pencil jar (vase actually) :D I am scaring myself actually--I cannot stop picking up pens and pencils off the ground and taking them to my classroom!

5- I don't get out as much as I used to. More nights including weekends nights than I should admit are taken up by grading papers, just a reality of teaching.

6- I am becoming a worse speller by the hour! Reading all of the misspellings I read everyday has made me start to memorize the mis-combinations of letters in words!

7- I accidentally pick up, and discard, every now and then a few colloquialisms, for example, I caught myself saying the other day, "Start shuttin' down your computers, packin' up your things and headin' back to the classroom." Atrocious!!!

8- I am picking up a bit of a high school sense of humor--I can anticipate what they will think is funny and then I will laugh first. Oh well, laughing is good, right?

9- I get a lot less sleep.

10- I am happier. I love working with the kids and my life has infinetly more joy in it than it did before.


(No--my student did not have permission to take this picture)