Thursday, April 30, 2015

Official

This has been one of the most challenging years emotionally. I put so much love towards my career and it constantly breaks my heart. My career is my students, their health, education, and well being. Everyday I see those faces and see all of the potential in the world. I have a student who could seriously be the first man to take a selfie on Mars. I have a student who could be the next great female comedian or athlete or both. I have a student who could charm anyone and anything. I have a student who could move past his life of violence and make something of himself. But, the problem with working in my type of school, is that most of these students will not be able to get out of the life that they were born into. That is why my heart constantly breaks.

The breaking was bearable as long as I turned a blind eye to the life they have outside of school and only focused on the preciousness of their time in school. However, my blind eye finally had to see. I made my first call to DHS today. It was heartbreak on a whole new level. How are we supposed to take these tiny humans into our lives and care and nurture them and send them off the hell for a home?


This is why teaching hurts so much and why it's one of the hardest professions. Not only do our students have hard lives that we have to help them navigate through, but we also must navigate through the beaurocracy of teaching. Think about having 1000 Garmins yelling at you to proceed to the highlighted route, while trying to update them to the latest version, test their proficiency, and keep your eyes on the road. The road in this case is the future of our youth. How can I help these students become productive citizens of society with all of the navigation? Sometimes you just want to yell "SHUT UP GARMINS, let me see the road ahead" Hopefully, I will see the road soon. Hopefully, I will be able to do away with some of the heartbreak. Hopefully.

It's official. I'm a teacher and I will stop at nothing to make my students' lives just a tiny bit better. Sometimes all it takes is a call to the right people or a smile in the morning.