Bad things are going to happen.
You’ll neglect to work out for
the 14th day in a row because you’re just too tired,
and you’ll decide to snack on
Oreos and barbecue chips instead of carrots and hummus.
You’ll indulge and make the
decision to stay up late and watch “New Girl”
and justify it with “you deserve
it.”
You’ll be tired the next morning,
so you’ll snooze your alarm, oversleep,
and then rush to school with greasy hair and wrinkled
clothes.
Your students will notice your
greasy hair and the dark circles
under your eyes, and they will not
fail to point them out.
“Miss, you look tired today.”
Wow. Thank you. Just what I
needed to hear.
You’ll think you have developed
the perfect lesson,
and you’ll start to think nothing
could possibly go wrong.
But then,
everything,
and I mean everything,
will fall to pieces.
Students will yell across the
room, leaning so far back on the legs of their chairs
that they are parallel to the
ground.
They will ask you to repeat
instructions that you have already repeated
that you have already repeated
that you have already repeated
three times,
and then they will go on to
complete
absolutely
nothing.
You’ll feel defeated.
Like pursuing this profession was
the worst decision you’ve ever made.
Like no matter what you do, it
will never be enough.
You’ll continue to let these
thoughts swarm your brain
until you feel like you’re just
one misbehaved student away from giving up.
From quitting.
There’s a story of a man who
encounters a girl on the beach,
throwing starfish into the ocean.
He asks why she is doing this,
and she responds, “If I don’t throw them in, they will die.”
The man looks down the long
stretch of sand covered in starfish and says “There are so many.”
“You cannot possibly make a
difference.”
The girl looks up at the man,
throws one more starfish into the ocean, and replies,
“It made a difference for that
one.”
You’ll begin to realize that you’ve
become the old man;
that you’ve neglected to realize
how lucky you are to be in the position you’re in.
And with that, you’ll begin to
rejuvenate yourself.
You’ll go back to the gym and
remember how good it feels to run and sweat and work.
You’ll start to eat healthy, and
begin to choose apples and carrots over cookies and chips.
You’ll start to appreciate all
the individual quirks that your students have,
and learn how to accommodate them
within in a classroom.
And when you inevitably have a
day where it feels like nothing went right
and no student learned a thing,
you’ll remember one positive
student interaction you had and know
“It made a difference for that
one.”
