always

No one will appreciate this story as much as I do.  It made me smile immediately.

I have been feeling so bogged down with teaching lately.  I am ready, more than ever, to have my own classroom.  While this may just be my controlling attitude, I feel confident that I can do it.   I'm ready.  And that I will love, love, love it when I can do it my way.

See, I feel like I am barely treading water.  I only go in a few days per week and the pacing is nearly drowning me.  I cannot wrap my head around the fact that we expect students--8-year-old kids to grasp something in a 20 minute lecture-style lesson.  Yes, we review.  Yes, we allow for questions.  However, this pacing overall seems to be 3 feet ahead of me and dragging me on a chain.

I know {because of experience} that pacing in public schools is just as bad, if not worse.  It's the price education has had to pay in order to prove accountablity, standards, etc.  And if anyone cares to know my opinion, I don't agree with it.  Instead, I would love to teach student how to become critical thinkers and problem solvers {not merely memorizers}.  Wishful thinking, I presume. 

So anyway, there are many things about my teaching and my current teaching situation that I wish I could change.  I feel like I am trying to stay on course while not trying to disappoint Mrs. Hoot, but that's my problem not yours.

When I went in today, therefore, I was a little more discouraged than usual.  Plus, Mrs. Hoot was there for awhile; this always puts me on edge.  So I was trying to appear competent while trying to remember how it should be done with her watching.

When Jimmy approached me, therefore, after he finished his math test, I almost told him to go back to his seat and raise his hand {one of our rules}.  I didn't though.  He proceeded to tell me that he is excited to track my brother's basketball team's record. I spent the better part of Sunday creating a small bulletin board which shows our class support for his team with the current record updated after each game.  Also, my classes' individual record predictions for the season are on it.  Last week, I asked my students to believe in the team, to root for something that is important to me, to share in my excitement.

What do they do?


No; they all don't disregard it as "I have such a crazy & weird teacher who is doing something that has no effect on them."  

Instead, Jimmy went home and printed out schedules for all his classmates using at least 100 pieces of computer paper and 2 cartidges of blank ink so that everyone can share in my excitement and track their games like I do. 

Wow.

I may not always like the pacing, the sharing of the classroom, the confrontational challenges with colleagues, the working with many different people who have many different opinions who I may not agree with, or the standardized testing, but I always, always, always LOVE my students.  And that is the moral of this story.