1. Do NOT, under any circumstances, leave your tervis tumbler with a straw on your desk unattended. Because chances are student sneak over to your desk to play with the straw all in their hands while you are doing guided reading.
2. They will call you out for any physical "abnormalities." Bad hair day? called out. Breaking out a little due to stress? Called out. Wear a dress on a day that's a little chilly? Yep. Called out. Scar on your hand from a burn? Called out.
3. For every question you answer, there are five more in it's place. Fact.
4. You will repeat yourself 3 times and then ask a student to repeat it for you, and there will always be someone who comes up and asks you what to do. Literally no matter what you do.
5. The mess!!!!!! I can't even get into this one. They are literally so messy.
While I have learned a lot of funny lessons, the most important lesson I have learned (and hope to continue to learn for as long as I am a teacher, aka FOREVER) is that how you treat them matters infinitely more than what you teach them. Again, just my opinion (cue the meme from RHOC reunion where Tamra yells, "it's my opinion!"). They soak up everything I say and how I say it. They mimic my sayings, my expectations, and the way I treat their peers.
This is pretty self-explanatory and I think I knew this at the beginning of this year, but seeing it in action is so different. Of course I want them to succeed. And I believe they all can. But what I want more is for them to know they have a place Monday-Friday where they can come and be themselves and feel safe and loved and heard.
This whole theme has been on my heart recently because I am reading a book called Looking for Lovely by Annie F. Downs. Each chapter has a theme on where you can find "lovely." One chapter was about music and the author revealed she taught elementary school for a few years. Every morning she would listen to a song called "Legacy" by Nichole Nordeman, and that this song reminded her of teaching. And of course, as a teacher and someone who loves making connections with other people, I had to listen to it. It has changed my mornings and my weeks and my outlook on teaching. I listen to it while I'm doing my hair in the morning (so I won't get called out for having crazy hair not on crazy hair day) and the lyrics echo in my head for the rest of the day, bringing me back to truth. The lyrics that play over and over in my head the most when I've been asked 306 questions in two minutes, when I've corrected a behavior countless times, when I need to pee but I can't leave these 19 little cuties in a room unsupervised are:
I want to leave a legacy
How will they remember me?
Did I choose to love?
Did I point to you enough
to make a mark on things?
When I want to cry or yell or just hide under my desk because they can get buck wild before a break and when the schedule isn't consistent, I hear these lyrics. Am I choosing to love or am I choosing to give in to frustrations?
I feel incredibly blessed to spend my days with these happy, silly, sarcastic, kind, and intelligent small humans. Everyday is new and this time is a gift. For me and for them. I don't want to waste it. I want to spend it loving them through my words and the way I treat them. Will they remember me as the scatterbrained Ms. J that forgot a lot of things and said silly stuff? Probably. But will they also remember me as Ms. J, the teacher that made them feel important and known? I hope so.
Isaiah 55: 12-13 is grounded in truth and says,
"You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.
13
Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper,"
In June, when I look back on this year, I pray to see junipers where thorn bushes might have grown.
I love that you are so immersed in your first year of teaching! And I have to say, high school seniors sound remarkably similar, save the playing with my turvis tumbler straw!
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