Teaching Kids

I began my 7th year of teaching on Monday. That concept is absurd to me. I have no idea where all of the time went. I was greeted on Monday by the smiling faces not of my new sophomores, but of my "Senior Babies." This is the first year that I am in the same building with a group of students that I taught who are preparing to graduate. They were beaming. I am particularly close to this group because I taught many of them for two years and I am their class sponsor. To say that I love them is definitely selling my feelings short. What I was most surprised about was the number of them who sought me out to show me their "seniorness" in all its glory. They gave hugs and their beaming expressions absolutely made my day. It was as if they were telling me, "see, I made it...I"m finally a senior!" I was thrilled.

I also realized today that I am definitely not the person to ask when it comes to advice on how to reach kids. One of our brand new teachers came to me today after school and he was obviously feeling a little down. Like all brand new teachers, he came to school Monday full of excitement and anticipation of opening young minds to the joys of English much like his teachers probably did for him. However, what he found were students reluctant to learn and in some cases, to do anything at all. He wanted to know what he could do to better motivate them. As I began to spill out my "wisdom" (of which there is very little), he and I both realized there really isn't any one thing that works. I left him with this advice: just be you. Kids are not stupid; they are far more intuitive than we give them credit for and they absolutely know when you care and when you don't. I realized that after seven years, I can't tell a new teacher exactly what to do to "win them over." What happens in my classroom, besides the actual lessons, is completely organic and natural for me. 

Please don't mistake this for boasting. I was actually a bit surprised at how I felt after the conversation. A sense of relief came over me. You see, for the past few weeks, I have been feeling very nervous about my abilities as a teacher. Our new principal stresses accountability and therefore, we will be having many more walkthroughs and our performance monitored more closely than ever before. The thought of this made me begin to question the way I have been doing things for the last few years. Today, speaking to the new teacher made me realize that I KNOW my students, I know how to teach them and I know how to love them, and that's really all that matters. As much as it frustrates me daily, stresses me to the limit, and burns every ounce of energy in my body, I am a teacher through and through. I have a feeling I always will be in some way.