Finished

I'm finished. 

I'm finished with my first year of teaching. How fast this year seems to have flown by. At the same time, I can't believe everything that happened in just one year. Sometimes I look back to my years in college and I feel like it was ages ago, but really it was only a year ago.

As you guys all know, I love to reflect on big events that happen in my life. I like to see what I learned, how I grew, and what I should change for the next chapter in my life. So here is my reflection. Side note: no matter where my life takes me, I will ALWAYS have the MOST respect for teachers out of anyone in the working spectrum. I have never worked so hard, loved so unconditionally, and been forced to be so selfless then this past year. These three things would be the top areas of growth and lessons learned from my year of teaching.

As stated above, I have never worked so hard before I became a teacher. Every single night I came home so exhausted from the day that I would fall asleep most nights by 9pm.(Ask my parents, I'm not lying) If teachers only worked the hours we were paid, there would be no school system. I tried working from 8am-3pm and there is absolutely NO possible way to be a successful teacher...I had to stop after two days of that trial because it was literally impossible. Teachers work so many hours a week for free just to get what must be done to help students succeed. I ended up calculating and averaging the hours I worked every week that was not on my payroll and it ended up being about 3 hours a day which equals to about 21 hours a week that I worked not on my payroll....and I KNOW there are so many teachers that put in more extra hours than I did. My job in a sense became my life, and that is something that I think most teachers must except. Teaching is not a job, it is a way of life. It is a huge sacrifice to better the future of America. So if you know a teacher or run into a teacher, please thank them, take them to coffee, write them a note, because their work goes unnoticed by many. The public can quickly criticize and belittle educators when in reality, they have absolutely no idea the stress, pain, and sacrifices that teachers make on a daily basis.

As far as learning how to love unconditionally. Teaching taught me the true definition of this. No joke. Two weeks into my teaching career a student got mad at me because I told him he had to redo work that he cheated on and he decided to throw a dictionary at me. This is where unconditional love is taught. No matter what my students would do, what they would say to me(And there were some pretty brutal comments/name calling made to me) I would always have this love towards my students. A love that I couldn't explain. Anyone would look onto the situations that I had to deal with and would not understand how I could say that I loved every single one of my students like my own children...but I had that unconditional love that could only come from God. I prayed every day for this love to come in me and flow out. I understand the love that never goes away. I understand what it means to love with no stipulations, no strings attached.

Selflessness is a hard lesson to learn. Selflessness is a lesson that I am still learning and a lesson that has been painful for me to learn this year. It was the most growing and rewarding part of this year teaching. When I have 40 plus little bodies coming in and out of my room looking to me for advice, tools to succeed, and many times just an ear to listen, self centeredness isn't even an option. In a sense, you are forced to be selfless when you choose teaching as a career option.
God had such humor in teaching me this lesson. As a teacher I get a planning period of 40 minutes a day. This is when the students are at art, music, etc. and you are supposed to be able to grade or plan for the next week. The times I was looking forward to those planning periods the most to have time to myself, God would send a little student into my room who needed my attention even more. I had students who came to talk about grades, boy drama, family issues, or just needed an adult to listen to them. I cannot deny that there were many times at the beginning of the year when I would hear the knock on my door and I would sigh, knowing that someone was about to come in for the remainder of my planning period. However, God taught me to give up my personal needs/wants and instead, put others needs before me. Many planning periods of mine were shared with a student sitting next to me talking away about their day, many were shared with tears flowing down their faces, or laughter that could be heard down the hall. Looking back, towards the end of the year I realized that God molded me in such a way that by the end, when I student knocked, I didn't even think twice about losing my planning period. Although it was painful in the beginning, God taught me the valuable lesson of not being selfish and giving my time up to others.

Although my career as a public school teacher as come to close for this chapter of my life, the lessons that were learned were too many to count and share. The person I am today is hugely due to this past year. I was molded and shaped into someone that is so different than who I was a year ago. I am entirely thankful for this year as a 6th grade public school teacher. I am not sure what the future will hold and if I will ever head back to this direction as a career, but I do know that the lessons learned will stay with me forever.