"... the brightest, the most imaginative, the most committed ..."

It’s the LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!  Which means that, as I write, my students are checking out of the building, and heading off into the bright, warm, sparkling freedom of summer.  I’ll join them shortly, but not without one final project completed in my classroom, overlooking my sea of desks.  It’s the project I’ve been procrastinating for the past 2 solid years as my creative space and time were hijacked by lesson planning, grading, reteaching strategies, website updates and parent emails.  I can now officially say, from personal experience, that teaching is hard.  I always knew it would be, but in a different way.  I never anticipated the livid parent reactions to students who earned a less than perfect grade, or the rampant acceptance (and even encouragement) of cheating.  I somehow missed the memo on how assigning anything of value will result in hours upon hours of horrid grading time.  Teaching is difficult.  And I’ve finally found a hero worthy of representing the time and energy it takes to be a teacher … a good teacher.

Meet Miss Stacy.  I know.  She’s fictional, and therefore, never experienced the reality of teaching in a modern age, but when my world sunk under a barrage of parent or student attacks, she was my muse.  For those of you not lucky enough to recognize her happy face on sight, she is the teacher from Anne of Green Gables (who I’m sure will inspire her own imaginative post in the future).   When things get hard, I can be dramatic, rather like Anne.  But when it's teaching related I can always count on a good pep talk from Miss Stacy to get me back on track.  Things I love and learned from Miss Stacy:

1.        Have high expectations.  Miss Stacey said that she wanted to look back on each class as the brightest, the most imaginative, and the most committed.  Despite feedback from the rest of the world, teenagers are smarter and are more capable than we think they are.  They can do hard things and will rise to expectations.  But it takes the brightest, most imaginative, and most committed of teachers to see through the teenageryness.

2.       Teach by experience.  One of my favorite scenes (in the movie at least) is of her charging up a hill side with her students in tow.  She taught them about nature by taking them to nature.  She taught about physical health by doing exercises with them.  And she did it all with a smile on her face.

3.       Have confidence in yourself.  It takes courage to start new classes and expectations in a place where change is rarely accepted.  She may have been scared, but it never showed in her demeanor.  She knew that what she was doing was good, and even though I now know she probably had some terrible students and parents who threatened her sanity, she taught for the Annes – the ones who were there to learn and grow.  And do you want to know something cool?  There are Annes in the world.  And they are awesome.  And they are worth the effort.

4.       “Tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it … well with no mistakes in it yet.”  If things don’t work out today, it’s okay because tomorrow is new.  You don’t know what it holds.  You will probably make mistakes, but as long as you learn from them, they are good.  You will probably have to face lots of change, but as long as you grow, that change is good too.

Yay for teaching.  Yay for teachers who are still brave enough to do hard things.  Yay for the Miss Stacys of the world.  And yay for a much needed Summer Break!