Forever Grateful

Having a week off for Thanksgiving this year was something we all needed. I found myself thinking about the classroom again. The days are a blur during the school year and you don't get much time to step back and decide if what you are doing is working. If it's the best thing for the students or if there is another way or if you are missing something. So when you get time, naturally your thoughts settle on what you spend a lot of effort and time doing. Teachers think about teaching. Well, that's me, speaking for everybody. Here is what I was thinking.

The f in fall stands for football. Football means late nights during the week for practices and early mornings on Saturdays. I am a sports mother. My sons play...well, everything. I can't say I know all the rules to all the sports they play but I can say that watching them play is one of the best things in my life. They radiate joy while they push themselves to be better at something they are not made to do.

I try to remember that in the classroom. I try to make my students want to learn and it is a tricky business. All children are curious but most are not dying to know what a pronoun is and how to use one. So, in an effort to engage them, here I am telling a bunch of second graders that in all the different sports they play team mates take turns getting to play. Words in sentences are like players on a team. They take turns. Yeah, it is a hard sell. Sometimes I wonder why they have to know the difference between a proper noun and a pronoun. I haven't had to diagram a sentence since third grade. I doubt that I would use that knowledge in my daily life if I didn't teach. Every kid that I've ever come in contact with..and that's a bunch... can and do use pronouns. I get a little grouchy with the powers that be in Atlanta and Washington when I start thinking that way.

Then I remember that even though I am a huge part of a child's life when they are in my class and even though I try to make them love me better than any other teacher they will ever have; I am still only one of many teachers these kids will have by the time they finish school. Pronouns are one of an extraordinary amount of skills that students master. Then I am struck by the magnitude of this task, the one I get the honor to be a part of, the education of a child. Then I stop being grouchy and find myself grateful. I am grateful to be a teacher and grateful for these tiny people who are a very big part of my life.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving,

Ms. Hehman