The Happy Dance

There are lots of times when being a teacher, well, sucks.  The hours are long, kids have attitudes, parents jump down your throat for holding their kid accountable, you receive 30 emails before lunch which you don't get to until after lunch only to discover that two of them were time-sensitive and the kid has already left your room - the list goes on.  And this is the time of year teachers feel it the most because even though we can see the finish line, we still have Four. More. Weeks.

But last night, my son spotted this box on my desk:

He dropped everything he was doing and said "Oooo, Mommy, is this a treasure box?" (I wish you could have heard him - he is the most expressive 3-year-old I have ever seen.  "Oooo" and "Mommy" were very high, and so was "treasure box?")  I giggled.  I suppose it is a treasure box of a sort.  It's my "Feel Good" box.  My dad started my brother and me in the habit of keeping things that make us feel good - things like notes, emails, letters - and then, on a bad day, we can pull them out and look at them.  As you can see, I modge podged (sp?) it to try to do away with the boring wood look.  Clearly it caught my son's attention.

"May I open the treasure box?" he so sweetly asked.

Sure.  So we got it down and opened it.  I haven't opened it for several years, and in it, I found a letter from my senior World Lit teacher in high school.  I nominated her for a Teacher of the Year-type award, and she won.  I knew she would win.  I knew if I could write a good enough letter of recommendation that she would win, and I knew I could because she taught me to write.  The letter was a thank you, and as I read it, I remembered why I teach.  Here's an excerpt:

"Teaching is a passion that seeps into a person's blood. Once it is there, each day becomes a new adventure with new ideas; 'wonder what the kids will think about...; wow, that concept never occurred to me.' The grand reward comes from a constant well spring of new perspectives - fresh thoughts from fresh minds. Of course, the challenge is to give each fresh mind the motivation to think - to think independently and deeply. That is when the teacher's heart skips a beat and then races through the proverbial happy dance."

Oh, how I love Mrs. B.  She is one of the reasons I am a teacher today, and it is so perfect that my son wanted to open this box last night.  I am still a teacher.  There are still four weeks of school left.  There are still 122 minds, hearts, and souls in my room for 46 minutes a day.

There is still time for the happy dance.