Thankful

There are many days when my job stresses me out. I put a lot of pressure on myself; I have high expectations for my students. I am not perfect, nor do I claim to be. I have learned to laugh at myself for my mistakes as well as celebrate my successes. At the end of the day...each day...I can honestly say I love what I do. My prayer for you is that you can say the same. smile emoticon ‪#‎blessedteacher‬

The above is my current Facebook status. In the wake of another crazy busy week, I needed time to reflect. This is what I have done this week:

• Monday: lobby the General Assembly to encourage our delegates and senators to increase teacher pay, reduce the number of SOLs our students need to take, and help reduce our health insurance costs by adopting a statewide health insurance plan for teachers, among other initiatives
• Monday afternoon: ship 62 pages of the yearbook for our deadline (worked until 7pm)
• Monday afternoon: meet with the newspaper editors to review the work done on our paper deadline
• Monday night: re-edit the school newspaper 
• Tuesday morning before school: upload our newspaper for publication with our publisher in the valley
• Tuesday: start the underclassmen deadline in yearbook with my J2 (newbies) journalists; start the theme deadline for my upperclassmen in yearbook
• Tuesday: teach concession/counterargument in English class
• Tuesday: teach/review layout terms for newspaper in Mass Comm
• Tuesday night: attended the SBO budget meeting

Whew! I am only at Tuesday! I am proud of what I accomplished in just two days.

• Wednesday morning - 9am: I am thankful that I saw one of my newspaper kids sign on National Signing Day to play football for Va Tech. Austin is great person, and I know he will succeed because he puts his all in to it!
• Wednesday English classes: persuasion, concession, counterargument! My kids were really into this lesson. One of them sent me a message on Twitter asking if they could further debate the topic in a Socratic Seminar.
• Wednesday night: church supper; church choir - got my worship on!
• Thursday 8:15am: distributed the newspaper! The student body loved this issue. My staffer reporters were excited to see students walking through the hallways reading the paper and discussing the issues! Several tweeted positive comments.
• Thursday yearbook 8:30-11:45: worked with our awesome and talented yearbook rep, Denise, to discuss our book's progress. This meeting was super intense and lasted close to three hours! What?! We were able to accomplish so much and correct our design problems. YAY!
• Thursday English: a bit of a downfall; I could not find a set of handouts. My classroom can be somewhat of a black hole. I wonder if other journalism teachers can relate? The papers are no where to be found. I have the papers the day before when I taught concession/counterargument. The only thing I can figure is that the handouts were chucked when my newspaper staff and I cleaned up the room. Ugh! I felt frazzled and discombobulated. The lost papers threw off the start of the lesson and created a few awkward moments for me. I know that I cannot always be a great teacher, but I sure strive to be. I have really beaten myself up for this mistake today. I definitely need to let it go. The lesson turned out okay; I was able to still do some of the work I planned, but I had to be some creative juggling.  

I am not sure why I am detailing all of this information; maybe it is to serve as a reminder for why I am so tired but yet so fulfilled. Sometimes I have to remind myself to look on the bright side, to stay positive. Other days I don't need to be reminded. I am grateful for a job where I can do what I love while trying to make a little bit of difference in a kid's life. I may not get it right every day, but I am thankful that God has given me a new day to try it again.