Nov. 14: 5 things you are grateful to have learned in your teaching career
5. Teaching automatically makes you a lifelong learner. It never stops. New strategies, new techniques, new technology. This year I'm learning about new student choice through #WWWW and adding fresh vocabulary strategies through my personalized professional development. I've written about it before, but I will always be changing and reviving things in my classroom. I am, after all, a teacher in perpetual motion. 4. Building relationships with students is a breath-taking and necessary risk. They will let you down and break your heart, but you will also get to watch them soar. I've lost students to drug use and car accidents, and I've cheered students on as they've pursued their dreams. I currently have former students climbing corporate ladders, advocating with nonprofits, pursuing degrees in creative writing, and dancing with Kevin Bacon. (You guessed it. I taught Nicholas everything he knows.) 3. Student writers are fragile and wondrous and strong. Sometimes I read something they created, and I pause in awe, my pen dangling over the paper, frozen with delight. They entrust me with their young souls on paper, and I am at equal parts empowered and afraid of the responsibility. Standing by as a witness as they discover their voices? It will always be my favorite. 2. Summer vacation is still an indescribable gift. When the "Hallelujah Chorus" pumps out over the intercom dismissing us on the last day, I am consistently filled with the same tangible anticipation that I experienced as a student 20 years ago. I love my job, and I love that my job provides regular breaks as well. 1. Teenagers, as a species, are freaking awesome. Really. You never know what each day will bring when working with this wily, wacky bunch. Yesterday, for example, my 6th period English 2 class turned into a makeshift medical clinic as I consulted one boy about his lack of hearing in his left ear and gave another student advice about a very large blister. (Update: The blister popped all over the kitchen, and the ear has serious fluid build-up.) We laugh so much, every day, and I think the world underestimates these teenagers because they don't write and read cursive (gasp!) and use social media with a fervor. But these kids? World-changers. Just watch them.
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