Teaching

I wish i could post of video of my every day teaching life. Its comedy. Its comedy as long as you can keep yourself from crying.
I'm not sure there are many other jobs besides teaching where you get yelled at on a daily basis by teenagers and you get to break up one argument after the next.
It is draining.
It is amazing what teenagers will do for attention. Amazing!
There are little rewards that go with this job that are turned in to HUGE rewards to keep a teacher motivated.
I get excited when a student passes a class. I get excited when they make public apologies at community meetings in front of the whole school. I get excited when my students push in their chairs and I don't have to spend ten minutes cleaning up after them. I get excited when I get homework turned in on time. I get excited if I get through a class without hearing the f-word. I love when my ESL students begin to use English and can communicate with English-only speaking students.
If students knew all the work a teacher puts into teaching them I wonder if that would change their attitude and effort in the classroom.
I have taken the Zen approach to teaching this year (thanks to the incredible examples I have at my job from other teachers). I have not yelled while teaching (I am not counting my advisory group.......they are just unruly and on the way to being labeled "annoying")
I am trying to create a peaceful place in room 228 at the Kurt Hahn school. I'll let you know if it works out in June!