Ride It Out
Today’s Guest Blogger: Heather Wolpert-Gawron
(a.k.a. Tweenteacher)
Teaching is a daily exercise in, as a wrangler buddy of mine used to say, “getting back on that horse.” Each day teachers struggle, reflect, and try again to have success whether it’s with a failed lesson, a failed student, or this failed system. But to be a good teacher requires a daily attitude and conviction of “I will crack this puzzle,” for without that determination, we would never be able to uncover that which makes some students laugh, or work hard, or plan for a future they previously believed had no place for them.
In fact, it’s a common occurrence in your first year or so in teaching to go home dejected, many times in tears, asking yourself why this strategy didn’t work or this student didn’t succeed. Your nights are spent researching, brainstorming, planning, and throwing out the crumbled paper of previously made plans, in an attempt to finally see that light bulb of learning go off over some struggling student’s head. You finally go to sleep, if indeed you sleep at all, dreaming of possible solutions, thinking outside the box, only to finally have your eureka moment in your car’s rear view mirror on the way to work. Maybe today’s the day that you’ve cracked the code to their comprehension.
Teachers, real teachers, don’t give up on their fight. They don’t give up on their school and their community. Neither should real leaders.
But that’s just what 49th District Assemblyman Mike Eng was heard saying in an off-handed