It's the most wonderful time of the year

Better get those Christmas tunes out of your head because that is certainly NOT what i'm talking about.  For those of you that don't know, i just completed/survived my first year of teaching.... teaching high school..... teaching high school in urban America.  I have learned more about "being outta pocket" and weaves and ashy skin than i ever cared to know.  At times i wondered if i was going to make it through the year and there were mornings when i did not want to go in.  I can't believe how quickly the time has gone by.  Right now i sit at my desk at home contemplating whether or not i want to take a nap.  Ryan is off working in his office (he just got a printer last night and is getting all set up), Jared is on his vacation in Europe and i've got nothing but time on my hands.  I had an opportunity to teach summer school.  I think teachers that do that (especially first year teachers), have some sort of death wish.  I am more than content taking time off this summer and doing nothing.  I am grateful to have a job to go back to in a couple months.  Not everyone is that lucky.  There were a handful of teachers at my school that aren't coming back next year and they will be missed.

I would like to share with you a couple things I learned this year:

*  SSR is a blessing.  I started doing SSR with my students about 2 months before school was over.  We did it during the last 15 minutes of class and having it quiet made it so much easier to transition to the next bunch of kids coming in.  I had one student who told me that she even started reading at home ON HER OWN!!!  When it comes down to it, that's the real purpose of SSR: getting the kids to read on their own.  We are becoming an aliterate society.  We have plenty of people who CAN read but choose not to.  Sad.

*  Shakespeare is the shizzle.  We spent the last month of school reading Romeo & Juliet.  It had been so long since I'd read it myself that I had to watch the movie to remind myself of the basic plot of the story.  A little over halfway through the play (we read it in class) one student commented, "This play is getting tight."  That's a positive thing.  I was happy to hear it.  

*  A student can take freshman English 4 times and still not graduate.  I had a super senior in one of my classes.  I had hoped he would be a good example for my cute little freshmen, but he ended up almost worse than a lot of them.  He'd taken freshman English 3 times prior to coming to me and he'd failed all 3 times.  How that happens and a student is allowed to proceed to sophomore, junior, and senior English is beyond me.  The day before graduation we had to know whether he was going to walk or not.  He had put in 50% effort all term long and it showed in his grades.  Part of me did not want him to pass so that he could see that you can't just slide through life with a C average.  He has hopes of college athletics, but if his academic side doesn't improve, colleges won't want him.  Part of me did want him to graduate because I know that joy that comes with that sense of accomplishment.  After taking finals, there was a glitch in my gradebook and it took us almost 45 minutes to find out whether or not he'd passed my class.  He sat in my classroom wringing his hands and (hopefully) contemplating what his future was going to look like.  In the end, he did pass my class..... just barely.  I hope that 45 minutes was enough of an impression on him to get his act together for college.

*  Colleagues can save you.  On more than one occasion, my colleagues saved my day just by listening to me.  I remember crying a lot during the first couple months of the school year.  My skin has since thickened and I don't worry so much about not having every detail of the day planned out.  

*  Teaching is rewarding - it truly is.  I have bonded with many of my students and I know that they will be by to visit me next school year.  So many of them have asked about coming to our reception too.  I don't know that THAT will be happening.  I feel like an older sister to a lot of my students and I'm grateful to be able to have some sort of influence on their lives, if not my teaching, at least my corny sense of humor.

Class dismissed.