Sometimes things are so hard, I have to ask myself why I am still trying so diligently to teach.
Sometimes, the question is answered by the students, even when they don’t know it.
Look at these excerpts from last week’s essays. . . .
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“Education is confidence.”
“My teachers never seemed to care about me in school. I sometimes wanted my teachers to ask me if I was OK, but they never did. It’s hard for a kid to tell someone they need help.”
“I learn better by experience and hands-on than by books. Thank God for shop. What do kids like me do now in junior high? Kids like me aren’t good enough for the State.”
“Teachers need to stop judging children on how they look.”
“The brain is constantly wanting to be fed, and when it is not fed, it is like the fat guy when he gets kicked out of the buffet.” (simile!))
“People who have an education sometimes do not realize how important it is. People who cannot afford an education would do anything to have education.”
“Education isn’t just teaching children how to read and write, but also to deal with their feelings and how to react around others.”
“When I was in jail, (my teacher) wrote me a letter, and asked me to promise that I’d go back to school, and that I’d go to college. I wrote her back and told her I would. That’s why I’m here.”
“I can remember when African-American women were not encouraged or even allowed to be educated. Things are different now, fortunately, and through my lifetime of blue-collar jobs and raising my children, I have learned that education is what separates people, not color, not religion, not anything else.”
“My father always said to me, ‘Get married to someone who will always take care of you, so you’ll never have to work in a factory.’ I never married, and I’ve worked in a large factory for over sixteen years.”
“Education means a lot to me because look where I am today: attending college and studying to become a teacher!”
“I want to be a ‘kid-changer,’ and make them excited about learning, and I don’t want to be under a microscope when I teach. I hate state standards; they put teachers in a box where they can’t perform to the best of their abilities.”
“I used to wonder what it would be like to go to college. I wouldn’t have believed it if I’d been told then, though. It’s even better than I dreamed.”
“Why couldn’t I have understood how important all this stuff was back when I was younger? And now I try to tell my grandkids and they don’t believe it either.”
“There were so many kids in my school, I don’t think any of my teachers ever knew my name. At least, they didn’t associate it with my face.”
“My son told me that if school was so important, why wasn’t I going? So here I am. We do our homework together on the kitchen table. “
“When I got laid off from my line job of thirty-two years, I went home and told my wife I wanted to die. She threw my sorry ass into the car and drove me here, and signed me up. Now I can’t wait to get here in the morning. I picked me a great wife, huh.”
“I think I would have known some of the answers twenty-two years ago if any of my teachers ever asked me.”
“All I have to do is walk in this building and I feel smarter. I think other people’s smartness rubs off on you if you open yourself up to it. It’s for sure their niceness does.”
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See?
Another time, I will share some of the not-so-edifying quotes with you. Tonight, in spite of all the worry and panic of my life, this class is making me smile.