Like this:

Sometimes life moves too quickly.  The first day of school was last week, and it was a complete blur.  As I tried to get things done for my freshmen, I felt the pressure of time on my shoulders weighing me down.  At the end of the day, I felt dehydrated and exhausted.  However, it all wasn’t in vain.  I do have a couple of students who I like already.  I even have one student who sees me three times in one day and still left with a smile on her face.  But I don’t worry much about students like her.  It’s others that pull at my heart.

I can already tell who the students are that will need me to carry them.  And I wonder, if I’ll be strong enough to do so.  I was taught through example early on not to mess up in school, so I didn’t. I worked really hard in high school because I knew that was my only shot at the life I wanted.  Yet, for so many of my students and some of my friends, school has never seemed like something fun, or even like something that is worked on diligently for a powerful end-result.  It is often done if the motivation is there, and often it’s not.  I try every year to reach these students, but by now, I can unfortunately see who may not be there in June.  Within a couple weeks, I can feel them letting go and their fingers like slippery silk scarves slide out of my hands.  I wonder if this is inevitable.  I know I can’t reach all my students, but so many end up settling for a life they’ve seen far too many times.  They often say that they want professional careers, but the path to get there is undefined.  Even as I try to help guide them with resources, research, and applicable discussions on life, so many of them disengage and disappear into a dropout abyss.

I have a student who has already missed half of school.  You have to wonder if you’ll just become jaded and lose faith in these students saying, “There’s nothing I can do” or if you’ll worry and pine over them only to realize at the end that you haven’t reached them.  I’m worried that I will eventually become too compliant and give up too easily because I feel like I’m just watching reruns.

These are just thoughts that I’ve wondered about for awhile.  Yet, with all this in the back of my mind, I do try to stay positive for the students who I can affect.  It is the small moments of individual successes with students that really make me see and feel joy for what I do.  For example, I feel like I’ve had 27 successful classes and 3 not so successful classes.  Today, I witnessed a girl buy into the lesson and improve her personality and behavior so much from yesterday.   I think some students actually enjoy the class, and I feel like I’m finally starting to manage all the smaller tasks that I have to do each day.  Yet no matter how much I doubt my teaching skills, I do know that I’m always unconsciously wearing my teaching cap.  I realized that today when a student did an impression of me and said I’m like a housewife, soccer mom, and teacher all in one.  I wasn’t sure how to take that.

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