| You know, as a teacher (especially when you've been doing it for a number of years), you tend to grow a little cynical with each passing semester. You hear the same excuses, see the same mistakes, and absorb the same passivity from students that you're trying so desperately to reach, that it tends to make the job a little grinding at times. At the end of the semester, people's nerves are shot and everyone is frantically trying to put stuff together that they should have put together weeks ago. But then they can't get it done in time, so they show up at your door and offer up the same excuses that you've heard every semester, or they play to your sympathies the same way you've heard every semester, or they just give up and hand in what they know is a piece of garbage, hoping that you'll somehow overlook the fact that it's a piece of garbage, since, you know, you're so busy too. And the cynicism starts to creep in yet again.
But then you have a night like tonight.
It's funny, because most of the students in my Exploring Creativity class aren't even on Xanga, but I still feel compelled to praise them because, well, I think they deserve it. Tonight was the last night of presentations (they were to create something, anything, based on their talents. The only requisite was they had to stretch themselves in that area, risk something). While there were many differen talents on display tonight, and there were quite a few projects that were just plain good, I saw some work tonight that, quite literally, restored some of my hope as a teacher. I saw students who had wrestled with problems, who didn't give up, even when it would have been far easier to do so. I saw students who started their project before midterms even began. I saw students who turned their weaknesses into their strengths.
Although most of you will never read this, and unfamiliar eyes will instead receive my thanks to you, I feel compelled to do it anyway. Thank you guys. Thanks for giving an ever-hardening heart a burst of hope and for showing me that somewhere, sometimes, students really do care.
And for all of you out there who have worked your tail off this semester, and have given your all, and have accomplished things you never thought you could do sixteen weeks ago, on behalf of my colleagues, I thank you, too. |
