I Managed to be a Teacher

My student teaching experience came to a close today, and as I left school for the last time, I felt myself feeling a myriad of emotions.

Leaving my students today felt bittersweet. I was sad to have to leave before the end of their semester in January, but I’m excited to get back to my classes and I’m looking forward to my graduation in May.

Last week, my creative writing students turned in their final portfolios, and I asked each of them to write a cover letter explaining their choices regarding the pieces they chose to include. In one of my classes, students took this opportunity to thank me for being their teacher this semester.

My cooperating teacher and other teacher's
in the school wrote me encouraging notes
inside Poetry 180 to wish me luck.

I was both shocked and touched. But even more than this, it’s so telling of the incredible students that I had the opportunity to work with this semester.

I watched my students grow as writers through the semester, but I wasn’t sure that they were seeing the growth, and I found it hard to tell whether or not I was getting across to all of them. These letters affirmed that I was indeed making a difference.

In one of the letters, a student openly admitted to hating my class, but then went on to say that he had grown as a writer. While I wish that this student had been able to enjoy my class more, I think it’s so cool to see that he was still able to identify growth in his writing.

However, despite hearing all of these thank you’s in these letters, and today at school, I find myself looking back on this semester, and I recognize all of the roadblocks that it presented.

This semester, I dealt with everything from students who really struggled with class material, to feuding students, to students who lacked motivation, to students who would push me and test me, to students who were consistently ahead on all of their work, and everything in between.

I dealt with (and passed!) the edTPA.

I dealt with a broken alternator in my car that required me to get a rental car so I could get to school the next day. I dealt with a flat tire at 6AM, which required me to wake up a friend and ask if they were kind enough to drive me to school.

I dealt with self-doubt despite all of the positive feedback I received from my cooperating teacher.

I dealt with constant worry and concern for my students.

Yet, with all of these difficulties (and more) that I encountered over the course of the semester, I still accomplished some incredible things.

I managed to teach a room full of high schoolers on a daily basis, and I watched each of them grow as writers.

I managed to wake up at 4:45AM every day and drive an hour to school.

I managed to grade paper after paper after paper, and still made time for lesson planning.

I managed to overcome all the car issues I experienced and still make it to school.

I managed to complete and pass the edTPA despite all of the other work that I also tackled while working on this project.

I managed to lead a reading and writing workshop style class and navigate standards based grading – two things which I had never before encountered, even as a student.

I managed to help my struggling students by offering them extra help and working with them one-on-one.

I managed to be a teacher.