Here’s a rundown of my day:
- 6:30 AM, talking to my sister about a pain in my leg. She suggests it’s a blood clot. I figure it’s either that or a tumor and I will die in a matter of days.
- 7:00 AM I hear other troubling news that I won’t talk about here.
- 8:45 AM The first wave of absolute overwhelmingness hits me as I can only get through 3 newspaper stories. I have 21 more. Feel like a failure.
- 11:00 AM I look in the faces of my students and just know I’m boring them to death. Feel like a failure again.
- 1:00 PM I go on a tech call. Can’t figure out how to fix the laptop. Failure, check.
- 1:15 PM Sit at my desk and hyperventilate over all the work I have to do this weekend.
- 2:30 PM After repeated attempts to keep a student awake while I read the opening pages of The Great Gatsby, for the 20th time today, I feel like a failure.
And then, at 3:30 PM as I walked from a meeting to the journalism room, a student from last year stopped me in the hall.
“Ms. Rowse, I used you in my paper for my Intro to Ed class. I had to write about good teachers and bad teachers. You’re a good teacher. In fact, you’re the reason I want to be a teacher.”
And that’s why I do it. Because sometimes just when you think it can’t suck anymore, it actually gets a little better.
Two things. You are a great teacher and I wish my boys would have the chance to have you as a teacher. And Chloe too when she is older. Also, I was totally joking about the blood clot, and if it makes you feel better karma is in true form because I have a horrible aching in my leg as I type this. And I love you. And yes, that is 3 things, but I'm not a math teacher, so I don't really care.