Worth It

Teaching is hard.

The past few weeks have been rough.  I could get into all the details about kids, parents, grading, meetings, new units that need planning, and the fact that I've been at school past 4:00 for four out of five days last week.  I told my husband I was ready to throw in the towel.  Teaching has too many demands on my time - I just can't do it anymore.  My husband was wonderfully supportive, but in the end he very lovingly pointed out that it doesn't really matter how I feel - right now there is no other alternative.  He is, of course, right, and if I was honest with myself I supposed I could see that this is probably just a rough patch (which I tend to have at least a few times a year), and that if I really did decide to quit teaching, I would not make the decision after a week like this one.

Our life group was headed to the high school basketball game last night.  Obviously we couldn't take Lucy to something like that, but my mom called and said my dad was out for the night and would I like her to take the kids so Rick and I could have some alone-time.  Instead of alone-time, we opted for three-quarter time.  We dropped Lucy off and headed out to the high school.

Right off the bat, I started to feel better about teaching.  We parked right behind a former student of mine, and I watched him unfold his enormously-tall self out of his car.  Remembering him as a tiny, shy, seventh-grade boy and now seeing him as a junior in high school was heart-warming.  At the concession stand were two of my girls from a few years ago who ooed and ahhed over my son.  Behind us and to the right was a girl I had a few years ago who had struggled greatly with school and hadn't seemed to have many friends.  She said school was going well and a little later in the game I saw her with some friends.  I saw two of my former students tear it up on the basketball court - one of them had 24 points!  I used to baby-sit her when she was young and then I had her again in 7th grade.  Between the two games they were crowning King and Queen of Courts.  (Believe it or not, I was a Queen of Courts candidate in high school.  It was the only basketball game I went to in my entire high school career.)  Three of the six boys were mine, and so was the girl who got crowned queen.  I saw a student from my second year dressed in a grass skirt and coconut bra for "spirit."  I saw several of my boys - one of whom was extremely shy - playing basketball like nobody's business.  And at halftime, there was an incredibly entertaining dance from the dance team and boys they had "trained" to dance with them.

This was exactly what my heart needed this week - to see these squirrely, unfocused kids a few years later when they have begun to grow up and mature, and to think that I had a part (albeit, a small one) in their development as students and as people.