Pride.

All CCE students, working on my class project.
I guess pride can be a bad thing, but honestly, in the case of the pride I had today - well, I am pretty sure it is a good thing. I was always so happy when someone told me when I was a kid that they were "proud of me." I got to say that to a roomful of teenagers today, and I really meant it.

There was a group presentation today and it went really, really well. The kids were good at their presentations, but they were also good at giving and receiving feedback and having a mature discussion without erupting into chatter and silliness like sometimes can happen in a high school classroom.

I was just very proud! OK, proud talk is over...

"In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work.  It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years."  ~Jacques Barzun
I hope that I can be around to see my kids, my students and my possible grandchildren sometime 20 years down the road from now. I guess by that time I will be exactly my parents' age, and I would like to think that I can look at everything that I have had a small part of and feel happy about it. I have had some very long workdays lately, and I know that many days when I walk to the car at the end of the day, I have been tempted to say... why do I work this hard?

The parking lot is empty and the building is silent... yet, here I am along with my next door teacher who is also my husband, not satisfied to leave until our job is done for the day and we are really ready to teach again tomorrow. I guess time will tell if the hours have been worth it, but I think that someday I will look back on what I have done and feel satisfied with myself.

But man, I am tired tonight.

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