Teaching Stories, part I

So I realize that I have not yet given any interesting stories from my first-year teaching experience, and if I do not release them, I will not remember them all! Some, I admit, are too personal for blog-world, but, my dears, I will reveal a few.

The first few weeks of school, I cried every other day or so, thinking I was a terrible teacher and I would never "reach" them and they would hate me forever. Yet slowly, I am seeing that my toughness on them has developed a little fruit.

For instance, I had a few students in particular who used to talk back/yell at/roll eyes/scream/(the list goes on), etc. at me every single day to exhaustion. Recently, those same students have been the ones who tell the rest of the class to "quiet down and listen to Ms. Lind she's trying to teach you something!" ...My eyes water and my jaw still drops every time.

One afternoon I asked my class to write a journal entry about someone who has influenced them, and one student wrote about her "dear Ms. Lind," who she thought might hate her because she does not speak English well, but the one she loves because the teacher always cares and helps her no matter what. Then there was the girl who almost broke my arm today because she wanted to run out of my classroom into the hall and attack the girl who was walking with her man. I slammed the door and told her to breathe, and she actually listened. There was not fight. If that had happened a week and a half ago, forget it.

OF course, I have had my awful days. The days when I burst into tears after the last backback has disappeared, and I force myself out of bed the next morning, promising myself it will get better.

But I have also had some great ones. The days I watch my strategic reading students REALLY working hard to get their questions answered so that they will get a purple smiley drawn on their paper instead of a frowny face that I draw when they do not complete their work, and the times when I see them truly looking at me in a way that I know means they understand and perhaps even enjoy the schoolwork. Even little things show me that they trust me--I mean, which teacher did you ask if you could leave your extra pair of shoes in the back of the room, the one you didn't want to see again at the end of the day? (I don't think so)

And so, right now, things are going pretty well. I am tired, but I am getting used to the way things roll. Sometimes I am still lonely, but I know it's okay.

Thus, I bid you goodnight.