When all the parts of the puzzle start to look like they fit

Quote #12: "Ms. Broome is my favorite teacher. She has made me nothing but a stronger student." - LM I am soooooo thankful I am not a crier, otherwise I would have been bawling the last two days of school. This quote is from a letter one of my students gave me on the last day of school before she got on the bus to go home and it was the perfect end to nine months of exhausting, heart-wrenching work in the classroom. It also served as some small validation that I am not a complete failure in the classroom. Teaching a "life skills" elective course is a lot different than a core subject; I can't see the tangible progress my students are making like I would be able to if I taught math or reading. Every time they got into a fight, skipped class, earned an "F" in a class, or cussed out a teacher it was like a small jab at my class, so it was nice to know that something I said or did at least reached a few of these kids.

It is easy to forget the small victories and get bogged down by all the crap that goes on in the classroom and the larger school building. And it is far too easy to not realize you are changing one kid's life while you are trying to get the attention of 20 other students. But I remember applying for Teach for America and thinking I couldn't be important to all my students but I just wanted to have a positive influence on a couple: I lost sight of this goal more than once during the school year. It is difficult for me not to become over-invested in all my students, as I have said before I have a tendency to feel too much sometimes, and not to feel hurt when I see them messing up and hurting themselves and their future. However, this letter, and a couple other gifts my students gave me, brought me back to what I believed when I started this job: that I could be a friend to some of my students but to 95% of them I will just be their teacher and that's how it should be.

Everything has changed so much in the past nine months and after adjusting to this new city and my new job I finally feel like my old self and I cannot wait to get back into the classroom next year! I am so grateful for all my family and friends who were with me at the beginning of this adventure. And if I vented to you at any point or had a mini-meltdown over the phone or sounded exhausted/haggard at any point, just know that it was all worth it, I was able to have a positive impact because of your support, and thank you for being there for me.

So that's pretty much it for this school year. No social commentary or particularly insightful message, just a big "thank you" to everyone who supported me and made this huge change easier. I might blog over the summer a little bit since I didn't get around to talking about everything I wanted to this year, like racial tensions, sex in school, and the newspaper articles that were written about my school. But, at the same time, I might just go outside and have a good time, I'll keep you posted! :)