Please thank your teachers…

Holy moly.  I apologize to anyone who was hoping for an update recently.  The first days of school have come and gone, and being a teacher has slugged me in the gut followed by a cheap shot to the nose.  This is no job for the weak of spirit, the faint of heart, nor one who enjoys a handsome paycheck.  I am up at 6AM, to bed by 10PM and usually working every hour in between.  While, I know the work that previous teachers have put in at this school district, I’m still dismayed and often shocked at what these young children can and can’t do.   I was amazed to find that my students could all repeat the order of operations, locate quadrants 1 – 4 on a coordinate plane, identify the x and y axis, yet cannot calculate that 3/1 is also 3, cannot reduce 2/4 to 1/2  nor multiply two digit by one digit numbers.  Basic things that I have assumed about these children have been thrown out the window regarding their scholastic as well as their emotional aptitude.  I remember reading in college that men like Machiavelli were monsters and that nobody should respect a man who rules through fear, yet I am coming to realize that culturally, in this part of the country, often fear and respect run hand in hand.   “Caring”, as I was often taught was a word that was usually synonymously used with the word “kindness”.  Here, caring means you assert discipline and structure and students respect that type of structure.  This has been a rude awakening for me, but has quickly brought out a new side of me that I had not yet previously seen before, and a side I am happy to have the opportunity to develop.  I am beginning to think the best words for it are assertiveness, and an attitude that actually means a little bit of business.

Which brings me to my next little rant, that is much more positive.  Email your teachers this week.  They could have been your favorite, the one that seemed to slave to make class interesting even when it usually wasn’t, or the teacher that just made you feel ok to be young and confused.  Email that teacher and say thank you.  They worked more hours and put in more blood sweat and tears than you can ever imagine.  These educators were never here for the money, the fame, or the great reputation their profession receives (sorry, I should have said lack thereof).  Your teacher stood there everyday for 7 hours to make you a functional member of society, and a better person for the hour or so he or she had with you everyday.  Some were great, some just plain stunk, but all of them cared.  So email a handful, the ones that really mattered, because they worked their butt off for you, and you probably complained about them for the vast majority of your year with them.  I know I did, and I was one of the good students!

And as I educate, confuse, frustrate, and fluster my students, I remember that they often do the same to me as we discovery each others intricacies, bizarre quirks, and sometimes just plain odd social lives.  The generational and lifestyle gap is quickly becoming apparent, but I still can’t help but be in awe of these students, the poorest of the poor, in the most misunderstood part of the country, in the most misunderstood age in a person’s lifetime, and yet there they are everyday, listening, talking, learning, and occasionally sleeping, trying to achieve something, anything, of substance. I hope they do, and I hope I do too.

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