Day -23: Reality Sinking In

It's strange how knowing that I won't be teaching next year filters into my actions and thoughts.

I realized my second year of teaching - after coming to terms with the fact that I had saved almost nothing from my first year, or at least I hadn't saved it in a way that I could easily use it again - that organization is such a big part of teaching. But now I don't have a next year to organize for. One of my favorite things about teaching is that there's always a next time. This lesson on decimals didn't work out how I envisioned it - well, how can I make it work better next time? It seems so depressing to think that maybe I will never get to teach long division, personal narratives, the Gold Rush, etc. better than I did this year.

Another of my favorite things about teaching is always getting to try new things. Today we tried a reading comprehension strategy called "Hot Seat." It's not that deep, but I'd never really done it with my class before. The idea is that one person takes on the role of the main character of a story the class has read, and they're in the "hot seat." Meanwhile, the rest of the class thinks of questions to ask the character. My students loved this. I had each team of four students come up with a question to ask the main character, and midway through the question-asking, students really started playing up the whole interview dynamic. "Channel 4 here," a student sitting at Team 4 started off. Then students at other teams started miming cameras rolling and holding microphones out, and it just took off. It seems so sad that I won't really get to refine "hot seat" and figure out how to make it work best for my students.

But most of all, what I'm most afraid of not being able to live without, is those moments when all of a sudden, I see a students' eyes go from bored/struggling/disengaged to sparkling, when students get excited about something, when they understand something, when they connect to something we're talking about, when they see possibilities in front of them. I read somewhere recently about a veteran teacher who said that the truly great teachers were the ones who could see the face of God in all the students they taught. And I don't know if I even believe in God. But when I see that sparkle in students' eyes, I feel energy, too - a spiritual communion in a very literal sense. That's such power we have as teachers, to be able to make those moments happen sometimes, and I know I will miss it - the power and the communion.

Does that sound too wacky?

***

On Friday, Juan said to me with that sparkle in his eye, "I don't know when I started to get interested in poems."

"I do," I answered. "After you read Love That Dog."

Juan kind of nodded in agreement and then went back to writing a page-long joke-y love poem on his own time at recess. (I will try to get that poem and reprint it here - though I'm almost sure he will have lost it because he loses everything).

If you don't know Love That Dog, read it. Juan and a small group of other students read it this year with me, and it doesn't always speak to every student, but for some students, it's captivating. Maybe I'm giving it too much credit, but I think that after Juan read that book, he started checking out poetry books from the library, finding some of the poems mentioned in the book, and discovering new poets, too. You never know what will open up new worlds for students.

I know I will miss having Juans in my everyday life next year. And the chance to help open up new worlds for students.

But I am excited about grad school, too, and maybe it's just a pause from teaching ...