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Thursday, October 4, 2012

Day 2: Lighting a Fire


You know I had no idea what I was going to write about. Honestly, I was about to write about how stressed out school makes me. The newest "fad" in education our state is adopting and test scores. There's not a day that goes by that I'm not constantly worried about are my kids going to be proficient, am I going to keep my job if my test scores are low, can I do better than last year, etc. I was so stressed today. And, lately, all this politics stuff with teaching and meetings upon meetings at school has just had me kind of down. I had emailed a parent earlier and was checking to see if there was a reply, and this was the first message in my inbox:

"Hi! I hope you are having a fabulous week! So, this week, we were making a study guide for our English exam. Since we really haven't done much English this year yet, ( we've been reading a lot. ) our teacher was trying to teach us a ton of it in very little time. Luckily for me, I had an amazing English teacher last year and I already knew all of it. So, while everyone else made a B on the test, I made an A. Just wanted to say thank you for everything you taught us last year! Enjoy your Fall Break! I miss you so much! Thank you for pushing us so hard. High school would be a lot harder if you hadn't been my teacher! You're awesome!"
If only this student knew how much I needed this. Now, with eyes full of tears, I have a smile on face and a smile on my heart. Often, the subject of how much teachers impact their students' lives is what we hear and read; however, I've learned a lot of the time it's 50/50. My students impact me in ways unimaginable. This student is such a beautiful person inside and out; I have no doubt she will do GREAT things:)
"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." ~William Butler Yeats
 


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4 comments:

Southern Living: Preppy Style said...

See, you ARE making a difference!! Keep it up girl!

Natalie said...

How sweet!!!!

Christy said...

I've never commented here before, but I also am an English teacher--I understand your frustration. If only we were trusted enough to educate our kids without politicians getting involved! Keep up the great work, and never forget that even though we might not hear them all, our kids WILL be better off because of what we've taught them. ..state tests be damned. ; )

Christy said...

I've never commented here before, but I also am an English teacher--I understand your frustration. If only we were trusted enough to educate our kids without politicians getting involved! Keep up the great work, and never forget that even though we might not hear them all, our kids WILL be better off because of what we've taught them. ..state tests be damned. ; )

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