And the Crowd Goes Wild

It's so late and I should have been asleep an hour ago, especially because I have a meeting at 7:45 in the morning, but I have to write this so I don't forget.

I was having a horrible day today. I got a new student yesterday who speaks little to no English. I already have one student who can speak decent English, but can't read or write. I went to bed last night and woke up this morning feeling stressed and overwhelmed about how I'm supposed to teach them and reach all of my other students on their various levels. Then I had printer problems all day and missed my entire lunch trying to get any printer in the school to print what I needed for that afternoon.  (Long story short: I didn't.)

So I walked in the faculty room for the last 5 minutes of lunch, just long enough to warm up my ramen and take a bathroom break. I then let loose complaining to my team about how frustrated and overwhelmed I was. They helped me carry my armfuls of stuff and our team leader offered to go with me to talk to the principal after school. I was very grateful for their support and help, and we walked outside to go to our portables.

And then we saw my students.

As soon as they saw us come out the doors, they started just cheering and clapping and going crazy. Then they ran to make a bridge with their arms for me to run through. It was possibly one of the sweetest moments of my teaching career and almost brought me to tears right then and there.

My kids have actually been doing this most days for the past couple of weeks because one of the other classes would sometimes clap when their teacher came out after lunch and I teased my class by saying, "Come on guys, don't I deserve a warm welcome like that?" And then they decided to one up the other class by doing the bridge.

But today it was something I really needed. I needed to know that I'm loved and appreciated and that my kids think I'm a great teacher, even when I feel like I'm not.

Who cares if they all make proficiency on the end of year tests? (I mean, sure it would be awesome, but does it really matter?) As long as I can help them enjoy school, like learning, and be decent people, then I can rest well at the end of the year.