The Reason We Do What We Do

I had a real-deal perfect teacher moment on Friday, and it came at a perfect time. You see, I teach 6 (10th grade Biology) classes but on an alternating schedule. I teach 3 90-min classes a day, and teach them every-other day. Anyway, this semester my A-day classes have emerged as my teacher's nightmare day, when I want to shoot myself in the foot just so I can get away from kids for a days. I am serious, even giving a simple (and silent) test requires such tremendous effort that all I want to do at the end of the day is sleep for 3 days. As you can imagine this has made the semester very difficult, especially when I have over 180 kids between the classes. With the mercury closure and the state testing I have had more "Oh what I have done" days than "This is why I do this" days. Well, finally I had a "this is why I do this" day. This past Friday, I had wrapped a really tough week, and was at the the end of my largest class (34 students, maximum room capacity) and was trying to calm down a very stressed out student. She was having a panic attack about the debate she was supposed to do on a controversial genetics issue (DNA Evidence in Court Cases). She was having trouble finding research to back her opposing view (which I had assigned her). After, I gave her some research ideas and calmed her down I was feeling a little stressed. I sat down at my lab bench to finish grading the debates I had just watched when one of my students approached me and handed me this note;

"Ok, I'm not trying to kiss up and I know I haven't been the best student. I just wanted to to thank you for all your hard work. I know that you try hard and I just thought that you might need some recognition, even if it's not a lot it's all I got. lol.

Well, that's all folks,
You know who"

It's like I told the new English teacher on my Learning Community Team, "There's always one student that we reach. Sometimes we'll never know that we did any good, but we have to remember that there is always one that will look back and be grateful for what we did. Even when things are terrible we have to remember that there's always one, and that one makes it worth it." I know it sounds very sappy, but she needed something to hold onto after a really rough day. In the end, though, it is true. One student's appreciation makes it easier to bear the insulting graffiti that covers the desks and that student that yells, "Just shut up" when you try to give instruction. If 179 of my 180 students never gave a second thought about everything I tried to do for them, it is still worth it because I know that this one student does.