As I sit out on my porch, I feel that today's weather can play as a wonderful little example of how my year has gone. It started out a little cloudy, but the sun began to beat down by noon. Suddenly, without any warning these massive grey looming clouds drifted in and the wind began to pick up. As I stood in my classroom (I still somehow can't stay away from school on the weekend) I looked out the window wondering if I should run downstairs, because I had no freakin' idea what was brewing up. After a good rain and a long hour of sprinkles the sun came out and you would have never known a storm had come in to ruin a perfectly sunny Saturday.
My first year of teaching felt a lot like this June day. The school year started and I really had no idea what I was doing. I tried to get settled in and for a good month I fooled myself into thinking that I was pretty decent at this teaching thing. Suddenly out of nowhere I found myself one day standing in front of a chaotic classroom wondering "What in the world is going on? Where in the world did this all come from?" I felt that I had to brace myself and go into survival mode for awhile there, and to be honest, parts of my year are super hazy. This might be do to lack of sleep, overwork, or my mind saving me the pain and pushing some of those memories aside. All of the hard times made me a stronger person though, and I know that I left a change woman and my students left changed as well.
I always tell my students that we are like a family. We are together 5 days a week for almost 8 hours a day in a small room with no windows... if that doesn't bring 20 lives together then I don't know what else will. I knew that this time together would either build us up together or break us down. While in no way did we master everything, or leave a little perfect family, we did reach some big goals. As a class we mastered 80% of our math standards, and every single student left my room a reader. While I would love to take credit for all of the growth that occurred in our classroom, I could have never done it with without supportive administration, amazing teachers in the school, relentless TFA friends who pushed me to be a better teacher, parents who came in and volunteered weekly, and students who became leaders and teachers in my classroom.
Each student that I was blessed to teach this past year impacted me and left an amazing mark on my life. Through thick and thin we made it through together, and I will cherish the incredibly zany and lively class picture we took together that so perfectly wraps up the true identity of my class. For now, I will savor the fact that I did not just survive this year, I lived it to the fullest in my classroom and learned how to live and love in total new ways.
At my current school we have mandatory summer school for the teachers. I have been lucky enough to already meet my new lively crew and have spent three exciting weeks with them. While I do love the new team we are creating, I think my favorite part of summer school is standing by my door each day and seeing my proud, responsible 2nd graders run up to me giving me hugs as they head off to their new classes. They already seem so big and intelligent and it has only been three weeks. Man this whole growing up thing is going to be hard on a sentimental, old soul like myself!
So here I sit already pushing forward into a new year. Who knows what lies ahead, but I know that the support system that I have built up will help get me through anything. My prayer is that in this next year I will take the good and the bad with stride and focus completely on the students I have been entrusted with, pushing forward as I turn my students' goals and dreams into my goals and dreams each day.
Thank you for all of your support this year! I am humbled by the thoughts and prayers that have been sent my way these past 10 months.
No comments:
Post a Comment