This past school year was a whirlwind of tests, not just state ordered tests, but personal as well. As I said in an earlier post, I got thrown into English II 3 days before school started. I had to play catch up in order to be successful. I eventually found my footing and we (my students and myself) figured it out and made it through the year. It was oftentimes tough and disheartening when I would look at the practice test scores and the simulated test scores and they SUCKED. I was panicking most of the year because I was afraid of what they'd do on the real test. They assured me that they would do better when the actual test came. Did I mention I had the highest percentage of struggling learners in comparison to the other English II teachers? Yeah... Anyway, I kept my cool and things started looking up. By April, my kids had started showing promise and everything was going great. They were going so great that life felt as if it needed to step in and shake things up a little. I found out that I was pregnant with my 1st child. Talk about exciting! My kids were equally excited and took on the responsibility of taking care of me. The beginning of the pregnancy was tough. I couldn't do anything. My kids wouldn't let me stand up, pass out papers, answer my classroom phone, NOTHING. They put me in my chair and pushed me around the room to help me maintain my pregnancy. They were genuinely concerned. At a doctor's appointment, they discovered that Baby Scott was stuck in my Fallopian tube. I was having an ectopic pregnancy. I had to terminate the pregnancy. I went to school and told my kids and they were extremely upset. They hugged, we cried, and I assured them that it would be ok, that I would be ok. They stood by me through the whole process. My OB/GYN scheduled a series of shots to terminate the pregnancy and things started to get back to normal. We got back on our test prep since the test was a month away. My students still made sure that I was ok and took really good care of me. I still had some pain but I assumed it was from the shots. I went back to my OB/GYN for a follow-up and wouldn't you know, life had to shake things up again. The shots didn't work. Baby Scott had actually grown and was threatening to rupture and damage my Fallopian tube. I had to have surgery the NEXT DAY to remove Baby Scott and would be out for 2 weeks. In 2 weeks, the English II SATP would be administered. That means I had no time to plan, no time to leave resources, no time to get ready for a sub, no time to tell my students what was going on. My doctor understood and he gave me a day to get ready. I went to school the next day and told my kids what was going on. Bless their hearts they were optimistic. In their minds this was a good thing because that means that Baby Scott was alive and could possibly move to the right place and everything would be ok. I didn't have the heart to tell them otherwise. I had my surgery and my students called me every 2 hours to check on me. Then they called me every day when I got home. Their calls made those 2 weeks at home a little easier. They assured me that they were working hard for the sub and that they were going to rock the test in honor of Baby Scott and they did:) People often ask me why I teach. They say kids are bad, they're rude, they're disrespectful, they're this and that. I teach because of the genuine love, respect, and concern from my kids. The love, support, and concern that they showed me during that difficult time meant more to me than anything else. Now granted there were some kids who couldn't care less about what was going on in my life and they let me know it. When I told them that Baby Scott didn't make it some of them gave me a few blinks and asked if we could go on with class. Did that hurt? Heck yeah it did, but I had more positive experiences than negative so it didn't matter.
This past year I had the privilege of teaching a student who had cerebral palsy, seizures, and was on the autism spectrum along with other things. It was a challenge because I had never had a student that severe. It didn't take long for me to get used to him and for him to get used to me. His classmates were instrumental in all of that. They looked out for him. They made sure he had his notes, included him in class discussions and group activities, and made sure that I didn't overlook him when he was ready to participate. At first he was just kind of there. By the end of the year, he knew my name and the name of some of his classmates, he had friends in the class, and some days he was the class clown. He started volunteering to read (even though he could only read on a 1st grade level), he would raise his hand to answer questions, and he told his classmates he loved them. Ah, that warmed my heart giving me another reason to want to continue to teach.
I hope my post has inspired or re-inspired you to give your best to your students 100% of the time. It has definitely lit a fire under me. I plan on giving my students everything they deserve from me from now on.
