Immortal

"Education is improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it."

-Marian Wright Edelman

We have made it through our first week of September, so in my mind, we are no longer in the first weeks of school. We have entered the long grind that is the entire school year between the "start" and "ending" which we all know is a 2-3 week buffer on both ends where we are either energized to be back or energized to be almost done. This middle part, though challenging, is where our real impact is made. 

About a week ago, I had a conversation with a former student of mine who decided late in her college career to pursue teaching. She has found that she has a true passion for the profession, but like many new teachers, she feels overwhelmed only a few weeks in and the prospect of fighting an uphill battle for another 30+ weeks is daunting. She told me she loves her students and wants to be the best teacher she can be for them, but she is in an inner city school with high poverty, no parent support, and an absentee administration. Her colleagues are mostly new as well since these schools tend to have extremely high staff turnover, so she has only managed to find one person in the whole building willing to help her. The new teachers on either side of her have already given up and have resorted to simply letting the kids watch Netflix most days.

As I talked with her, my heart broke knowing that there was very little I could do for her sitting in my truck at Home Depot while she cried in Louisiana. How lonely it must be for her to be in that situation and feel like her closest support system is several states away. I encouraged her the way I would encourage all of you to keep fighting for your kids. Here is just a little bit of what I shared with her and later on Facebook because I want every teacher that I know to understand just how important you are, especially when it is the middle part of the year and you feel like you have nothing left in the tank.

I told her that loving even the most difficult student is the only way to make progress with them and that the most important lesson I ever learned about being a teacher was they your students will not care what you know until they know that you care. I know you are struggling to reach students that you just met a few weeks ago, but you don't have to be a miracle worker to be the miracle that kid needs. Don't compare one day to the next because the work we do is more difficult than that. Don't be discouraged when you feel like you aren't making progress because you are making a bigger difference than you may ever know. It is an exceedingly difficult job, but I truly believe it is the best job on the planet. There aren't many other jobs that allow you to truly be the change you wish to see in the world. You are making an impact on the next generation by simply showing up and pouring yourself into our kids. Sometimes you'll pour out so much of yourself that you don't feel like there is anything left, but I promise you there is, and the best part is that what you've poured out isn't lost; it's invested to grow in the young people we work with so that someday they will be able to pass it along to others. Your efforts are immortal. Fight the good fight. We have nothing but possibilities in front of us.