I fully expected the cynical side to take over today and to find nothing to be grateful for. After all, I didn’t get home until 8 PM, and when bedtime is 10 PM, that doesn’t leave a lot of time to accomplish much of anything.
But I made time to do some yoga, and decided I deserved to watch one 30 minute TV show. As long as I caught up on some emails at the same time. One email was a student’s personal narrative rough draft. I forget how dicey it is, assigning personal narratives. If a student feels safe in my classroom, he or she will hold nothing back in a personal narrative. That’s when my heart started to melt a little, and inspired today’s list:
1. I’m grateful for the tacit acknowledgment that I’ve created a safe space for a student to share a raw and powerful experience. I don’t mean that to sound arrogant, and it’s hard to explain, but that’s the best I can muster right now. I forget my students have the ability to impress and inspire me.
2. I’m grateful for righteous indignation.
3. I’m grateful that I was able to limit my to-do list today (which will still be unfinished by the time I go to bed) to what I thought was essential. I’ll try again tomorrow.
The only thing better than righteous indignation is Sharpies and righteous indignation.