The Best and the Worst

I spend nearly every hour concerned with my students.

I spend over 6 hours with them during school, every day of the week.

I stay after school helping them with assignments and letting them catch up.

I spend hours grading.

I spend hours and hours planning units, weeks, lesson plans, and activities.

I am so anxious about how lessons will go, I even wake up dreaming I'm in the middle of teaching a class that is not going well at all.

These kids are my life.

I pour all of my time and energy into trying to help them learn.

If I see blank faces, I call on students to pull their attention back in. 

I come home from work exhausted, starving, and sore in my feet and shoulders from standing and teaching all day.

What more can I do?

What more can I do when I put so much time, sweat, stress, and thought into these lessons? And what can I do when I pour every bit of energy I can muster off 6 hours of sleep into teaching?

What more can I do to satisfy the student who told me today how "monotone, boring, and repetitive" I am?

:(

I guess I just have to consider the student who likes me enough to keep trying to message me on Facebook. And who asks me to be in pictures like this:


Comments

c.c. said…
i know you know this, but i'm going to say it again to try to help you believe it more: you can't, won't, never will make everybody happy. don't even make that your goal.

you can make Jesus happy---which we do just by believing in only him and loving him with our lives.
October 13, 2009 at 5:32 PM
Atul said…
... i remember alot of my school teachers, and in retrospect not only i love all of them i still respect them... i guess it is only human not being able to appreciate what we have at present and then smile upon self thinking 'how silly i was' ... keep heart and keep teaching and ofcourse keep posting...
October 14, 2009 at 12:46 PM
Rachel said…
Don't give up, Janet. Your hard work will pay off--probably is paying off in ways you have no idea of.
October 14, 2009 at 6:51 PM
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