Keep the Notes...Read the Cards..Forget on Demand

        Is your academic year really a blank slate? If you are on your second or thirty-second year of teaching kids, you have history, memories, hopes and possibly some crushed dreams somehow occupying real estate on your new canvas.  I wish I would have kept every note, letter, "sticky note," card or email that students have addressed to me.  

"The way they treated me with fairness there is exactly how you treated me." I certainly remember that email from a former student after he had finished military basic training. It ended with, "I'm sorry for how I acted in your class, but now am a better person and I want to make something positive out of my life." I am pretty sure I have the first quote verbatim. The second one is close and I really shouldn't use quotation marks, because (of course) I cannot find the email to confirm the wording. 

 From: https://www.notsowimpyteacher.com/

     After seeing teenagers morph from storm to serenity or glee to glum within a 30-minute lunch period it still takes me by surprise. They may "know not what they do" but it is still hard to forgive them for their craziness since it is part of what makes you and your peers semi-catatonic at about 3:45 pm on any given Thursday or other non-weekend day that ends with a "y." Yet we do with a big smile on our faces and laughter in our hearts. We also have to ask their forgiveness too, because to err is very, very human and showing that is an important part of the job.

     The Coast Guard's killer advertising line from a few years ago was, "jobs that matter." That was definitely a good one and teachers know we can claim it too.  We matter.  We care. We start scribbling or typing notes with ideas for the first day or week of school sometime in July even as we are knee-deep in a novel, dabbling in our garden or hiking on some coastal trail. That senior we just could not get over the graduation finish line was a gut punch.  Just like the seniors that previous year who just lost their way and still showed up to school out of habit but had long since quit the work. But this year...this mid-August and beyond--will be different.  

      Keep the cards. All of them. Read them in July. Remember the good stuff and take some advice from former NFL coach Steve Mariucci:

     "Whether you're a quarterback and you just threw a pick, or you're a corner and you just got beat for a touchdown, you've got to have a short-term memory, shake it off and play the next play.

Super Amazing students & staff at Fairfield High CA. Remember this stuff...