Movin' On Up

Fourth grade has been my heart since that August day 12 years ago when I greeted my first student. There are so, so many things I love about nine and ten year olds, and there are a multitude of assignments I have loved giving them over the years.

• Fourth graders almost always love their teacher. They make their teacher sweet cards, tell her nice things, and generally make her feel special. And they ALWAYS notice when their teacher changes her hair. 
• Fourth graders are funny. Sometimes it's intentional and sometimes it's not, but they're always funny. 

Still one of my favorite grading moments...

• Fourth graders find excitement in everything. Cleaning the floor, straightening the book case, taking the trash out...they do it all with a bounce in their step!
• Fourth graders take the time to get to know their teacher. They know what she likes to eat, what her favorite colors are, and how many times she has worn an outfit in a school year.
• Fourth graders put 100% of their effort into my most favorite assignments: memorizing "The Road Not Taken," writing a research paper about a specific dog breed, putting together an extensive notebook of their own poetry, making a game and commercial for The Sign of the Beaver, and writing a persuasive letter to parents arguing the benefits of a new puppy (a parent favorite). 😉

Why, then, would I want to leave my comfort zone full of familiarity and favorites? 

I have found myself taking on more and more responsibility over the past several years. I have been writing a lot and editing even more, and I truly believe it's because I have been longing for a new challenge. 

This spring, when a secondary English position opened up at my school, I was intrigued. When I passed the necessary certification test right away, I was interested. But when I felt God calling me to take the job, I was positive. God's been nudging me towards a position like this for many years; I just didn't see all the pieces until the job was right there in front of me. 

I'm under no illusion that it will be an easy transition. I know the hours will be longer initially, the grading will be more time-consuming, and the students will be a little wiser and a lot taller, but I know I'll love my job just the same.

I'm not sure what the future holds or what my new list of favorites will look like this time next year, but I do know that I'm ready to start over, to push myself and my students to our full potentials. Until then, keep me in your prayers as I take this small, yet life-changing, step of faith. 

A Work of Heart

I have been thinking a lot about the situation our teachers are facing in Oklahoma. I have read just about every opinion piece circulating, mostly for the strike, but some against. I have rattled words and words and words around in my head, asking myself if I have even one bit of new perspective to add to an already thoroughly dissected issue. I'm not really sure, but I'm going to try.

I taught in public schools for nine years. My first couple of years were fine, but things quickly changed to not fine at all. Nine years is but a fraction of the time many of my friends have taught, but nine years was enough for me. For my tenth year, I left to teach at a private school. I love teaching. I love watching kids learn, and I love when they surprise themselves with what they are capable of doing and creating. I love connecting with them, and I love knowing at the end of the year that I may have made some small difference in even one life. I still struggle with feeling a bit like a traitor, leaving my teammates behind. But I am still teaching, only now without all of the things I didn't love.

You see, I didn't love being told exactly what to teach and when to teach it, regardless of whether or not my students had grasped a concept and were ready to move on. I didn't love when a very high-ranking administrator told me that I was NOT to teach writing (or really anything but reading and math), because it was not on the state tests. I didn't love going behind that administrator's back and teaching it anyway, because it was what was best for the kids, but knowing that I very well could be answering for it later. I didn't love teaching to the test because my school would be judged by the performances of students who had a parent arrested the week of testing, or had been told that their parents were splitting up that same month, or a host of other things I saw happen come April. Funnily enough, kids don't care very much about a test when their lives are falling apart around them. I didn't love spending so much time focused on getting the low students to pass the test that I had no time to challenge the ones that were above the cut-off scores. I went home many nights thinking that another day had gone by that I had failed to connect with those kids that rested solidly in the middle, and that ate away at me. I didn't love hearing that I "only taught 10 months out of the year" so my pay was actually more than fair, even though when I worked out my hourly wage with all the extra hours I put in, it was somewhere around $13 an hour (which wasn't too far from what I made working retail in college). I mean, we pay our high school babysitters $10 an hour to play with our one kiddo! I didn't love spending so much of my money on supplies and things for my classroom, but it didn't occur to me that things should be any other way, because I had seen my parents (who were also teachers) do it for many years before I ever did; their careers offered just a glimpse into the unseen sacrifices I would be expected to make as a teacher. I didn't love when the copy count for our classrooms started to be limited; when people who had never seen us teach started questioning how much we chose to copy (and by extension questioning our professional judgement) through an inanimate object. And I didn't love when the standards kept changing and changing and changing and we were forced to spend many long hours of our own time trying to bend and revamp our curriculum in order to push our kids to learn things that seemed to be more developmentally inappropriate by the year. The list could go on and on, but that's not really the point. 

The point is that many, many of my friends are doing their jobs, and doing them extremely well, despite all of these things, and so many more things that lawmakers have never thought about for a second. My friends have taken on more and more every year, and they have done it under the radar, with such little recognition and respect that it still shocks me sometimes, now that I'm on the outside looking in. Were I still part of the public school system, I would walk in a heartbeat, not because I didn't care about my students, but because I absolutely did. Trust me when I say that if your child is being taught by someone who is still sticking it out despite professionally deplorable conditions in many cases, it is ONLY because they love their kids, your kids. It is definitely not about the money. According to the opposition, that's what getting a second job is for...

Everyday Heroes

Monday, May 20, 2013. It started innocently enough, a typical manic Monday. As we all now know, it was to be one of the deadliest days in the history of our proud state. As I watched the news when I arrived home, and watched, and watched some more, unable to tear my eyes away, I was heartbroken as I heard of the students who lost their lives in Plaza Towers Elementary Schools. I was also so relieved to hear that there were some survivors and so proud to see teachers being hailed as unlikely heroes, symbols of hope in the devastation. I, however, was not surprised. I can promise you that those very same teachers were heroes long before they made national news.

I have seen things done by teachers that others would never believe, much less understand. A child in their class is a little (or a lot) behind, so they stay after school, without pay, to make sure that said child reaches their full potential. A child is without a mom, so they become like a surrogate, making sure to spend extra time, give more hugs, and speak more praise. I know teachers who spend hundreds of THEIR OWN dollars on their classes each year to make sure that they have what they need to reach a new group of kids, a generation who is quickly losing intrinsic motivations and one that must utilize technology in ways never before seen in the classroom. I know teachers who spend their coveted "summers off" planning innovative lessons, attending all kinds of workshops, and cheering on past students at various events. I know teachers who buy yearbooks anonymously for the kids in their class that don't have one (at $25 a pop) so that the kiddos don't feel left out. I know teachers that consider it the absolute highest compliment to hear these words when asked what they learned this year: "To treat others the way you want to be treated," because they know that a great teacher does so much more than teach math and reading. And they do it all without the expectation of recognition.

In college, they don't tell you that someday, you may have to confront a gunman in your school. They don't tell you that someday, you may be the only one holding it together for a classroom full of children in the middle of a tornado. That's how I know these teachers were already heroes. They did not consider their safety, they did not rely on training, they did not reach for a "What If" manual. They did what they had done every other day in their career. They sacrificed for the sake of their kiddos, and they deserve every bit of commendation they will receive, both for the things we know they've done, and the things that we will never know. Because of them, I have never been prouder to call myself a teacher.