What I Know Now

This has been the hardest week of my life, bar none. I'm covered in bug bites, I'm exhausted, and I'm facing challenges I've never faced before in my life, challenges that, frankly, I'm completely unprepared for. Every day I fail at something in a new and creative way. Yet everyday I come back for more.

At some point, I've had to ask myself why I keep coming back. Actually, it hasn't been at some point. It's been at every point. Every single day I have to reassess what I'm here for and ask myself if I knew then what I know now, would I still have decided to come down here in the first place?

The answer is an unequivocal yes and in actual fact it doesn't have anything to do with what I know now. It has everything to do with who I know now. 

Because now I have students. 

Every day my students challenge me to do better. Every day they ask me questions I'm not prepared for. Every day they test me. Every day they impress me.

So I keep coming back not because I now know how to write a lesson plan. Not because I now know how to write a scaffolded assessment. And not even because I now know the literacy rates in the Mississippi are the lowest in the country. 

I keep coming back because now I know them. I know the student who wouldn't speak at a more than a whisper on Monday and was my most active class participant by Friday. I know the student who wants to design video games but can't read anywhere near grade level. I know the student who is taking Algebra I for the fourth time entering his senior year. I know the students who understand and explain everything almost perfectly out loud and who then get 25% and 30% on their daily assessments. I know the students (all of them, every single one) who want nothing more than to succeed, who haven't been given the tools to know how.

And when I think of them, I wonder how anyone could turn away. I wonder why so many people already have. I certainly can't. Not when I know them. Not when I know who I know now.

...

Weekly Gratitude: I have the most wonderful lesson planning team in the state of Mississippi, probably the country. The four of us spend almost every waking minute together, but we don't hate each other yet. In fact, we really like each other and we have a surprising amount of fun planning lessons and working our butts off every night. To them, I just want to say thank you and I couldn't do it without you!

Challenge: Often during my lessons students are en pointe verbally and can clearly demonstrate that they're understanding the material, but when it comes to written work, their intelligence and understanding just isn't showing up. It weighs on my mind all the time.

Quote of the Week: "Everybody's a genius, but if you judge a fish by it's ability to climb a tree, it will live it's whole life believing it is stupid." -Albert Einstein

Jamming To: "Shenandoah" by Goldmund (Folk music is great for studying and working!)

Mississippi Fun Fact: Mississippi was the first state to allow a woman to deliver mail. Mamie Thomas started her route in 1914.