why I do the what I do...

I am a teacher. I have always wanted to be a teacher for as long as I can remember. Now that I am doing exactly what I have always wanted to do, I ask myself "WTH were you thinking???" Others have asked me "why do you teach?" I have never really given it much thought. It is basically like any other job. You have good days and you have bad days. You work with some great people and others grate on your last nerve. But then there comes the times when I realize WHY I teach, why I put up with rude, disrespectful children and their parents. I realized what made all of the work that I bring home, all of the planning that I do, all of the stress and headache worthwhile.

Today I saw the light come on. If you are not a teacher, then you won't understand what I am talking about. But THE LIGHT is that look that a child gets when they have learned something new, or worked really hard at a problem and finally understand what they are doing. It's that "AH HA" moment. You see it in thier eyes first, then in their whole face. It's a shining in thier eyes, hence the term "THE LIGHT CAME ON".

Each month, I chose a book to read aloud to my class. Something to fill in 5 or 10 minutes at the end of the day. For February, we read a short picture book about the Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, adn then a series of short books about African Americans. For March, I chose "Number the Stars" by Lois Lowry. It's a hard book for 3rd graders to really "get into". I had to keep stopping and explain things to them about Hitler, Nazis, etc. I tried to keep it simple, but still give them a feeling of what was going on. I worried that for most of them, they wouldn't understand. I hoped that all of them enjoyed the story. Today we finished the book, just as the students were to go to PE. As they were walking out of the door, one of my students stopped and asked me if I had time to answer a question about the book. SO we sat on the steps to my t-building, and he said "In this book, I know why you read it to us. You wanted us to see that people can hate other people because of their religion, it's not always about Race." (Yes, we talked about that a little in class.).. and then he says something to me that I had never thought about before.. "Well, in this book, the way the people were helping the Jewish people get to safety.. it's kind of like the Underground Railroad in the slave days right?" (UMM... I hadn't never thought of it in those terms before, but I realized that he was right.).. We talked for a few more minutes, and then he walked out to PE. I sat there for a moment..thinking over our conversation, replaying it in my mind. I relished that look that I saw in his eyes.. that LIGHT that came on. He had learned something, and thought about it, and came up with a logical connection to something he had previously learned.

This was one of those days when I am so glad that I am a teacher. This is my job.