A Teacher's Tale
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September 20, 2016, A Teacher's Tale
High schools graduate seniors in June and take in a new crop of students in late August. The new school year starts with the usual flood of new and familiar faces. The summer months have ended, teachers are hopeful, the silent building is filled with a roar as halls are filled with smiles, stories, hopes and expectations, and the first few days of organized chaos begins. By the end of the week one, classes begin to have a rough pattern of normal. Week two finds effective teaching actually happening. Week three ends and time has come for the first, dreaded test. It is the big day - the time is 9:55, the class falls silent and the test begins in 5 minutes. With a true face of innocence a child looks up and says, "I don't understand anything." No questions, just those four words. Smiling the teacher asks, "What?". The child repeats, "I don't understand anything." Confused the teacher asks, "What is it you are having trouble with?" Again, with a look of innocence, the child responds, "All of it." Smiling is harder now but the teacher pushes on asking, "When did you discover you were having trouble?" With a hopeful smile the child answers, "Last night about 10 when I looked at the review." Teacher sighs silently then, trying to smile, replies, "Do the best you can." The child responds, " But I won't do well on the test if I have to take it now." Finally the teacher closes with, "Okay, give it your best, and we will begin going over the parts you have trouble with tomorrow." When the teacher shared this story, I asked how the child was doing, The child passed and on the next big test almost made a 100. The teacher said the moral of the story was, "If you don't love kids and teaching, it would be work." My moral to the story - Teacher's teach a lot more than subject matter. |