Why I might be a teacher

As I was grocery shopping this afternoon and making my accustomed beeline for the samples, I heard a girl's voice say, "Hey, she tutored me today!" I looked up from the turkey and cheese I was about to try and saw the slight figure of a familiar seventh grader. I've been tutoring reading at a local junior high recently, and I'd worked with this particular girl earlier in the day. Surprised that she would remember me, I waved and smiled. My heart was warmed by her excitement to see me - it was almost as gratifying as a second grader grabbing your hand to pull you out to recess. It's moments such those that make me feel like I'm supposed to be a teacher. Maybe I will.

Maybe I will because I love to see a child's face light up when he finally understands something that was  a mystery to him. Or because I love talking about the geysers in Iceland with a struggling reader. Or because I love feeling like I made a difference, while at the same time knowing that the kids did more for me than I ever did for them. Or because I simply love people. Few professions - if any - offer the potential for touching so many lives so deeply as that of a teacher.

Not that it would be easy. There are definitely those days when students don't want to make an effort or feel that school is just too hard. Or times they ate so much Halloween candy the night before that they much prefer acrobatics to sitting still and writing. No, not easy. But worth it.

Maybe I'll be a teacher because, as you teach, you learn what life is really about.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Messenger of the Covenant

Recently I’ve been studying (at President Nelson’s invitation) about God’s covenants to Israel as well as each passage in the scriptures about Christ. As Christmas approached, I found a beautiful intersection of my two courses of study: Christ is the “messenger of the covenant” (Mal. 3:1).  For some reason this phrase struck me deeply. Christ is the embodiment and fulfillment of God’s promises to His covenant people. This poem tries to capture some of the wonder and gratitude I feel for the tiny Babe in Bethlehem who came to fulfill God’s promises to all mankind.   Millenia of promises From God to His children Lay swaddled in a manger That night in Bethlehem.   The incarnate fulfillment Of ancient covenants Was cradled by his mother Under heaven’s broad expanse.   God had promised love, And hope and resurrection; Forgiveness, joy, and family; Healing and protection:   Those promises all came to pass Through Christ our Heavenly...
Read more

Memories and Missing

Image
There’s something about an anniversary—about being located in the same cosmic space in relation to the sun that you were when something significant happened—that makes you nostalgic; that makes you think about the past. And if you’re like me, it makes you feel like waxing verbose and throwing scattered memories and thoughts onto a computer screen. It’s been a year now since my dad died. An entire revolution around the sun, complete with Christmas, birthdays, and all the other celebrations and mundane days that noisily squeeze themselves into our calendar. Each of the days of the year has now happened once without my dad here on the earth to welcome it; without him able to receive my texts or laugh at my jokes or tell me he’s proud of me or hold my little boys. And I wish I could say, at this end of my first year without Dad, that I have some profound insight to share with the world; some neat little package of how-to-succeed-at-grief tied up with a bow and ready for dissemination...
Read more

How can an American love both Russia and Ukraine?

Anybody who knows me is well aware of how much I love Ukraine. Ukraine will always be my second home. She will forever have my heart and my loyalty. So I guess, given that love and the current political situation in Eastern Europe, I shouldn't be too surprised when people ask me how I could've gone to Russia this summer--isn't that somehow betraying my loyalty to Ukraine? And yet, that question does surprise me. Because I see in it the implication of the entire Russian nation in causing the unrest in Ukraine--the entire population as being somehow antagonistic to Ukraine. And, having now lived in Russia, that is a concept completely foreign and unfathomable to me. Because Russians are wonderful people! I know them. I have seen their hearts. My coworkers in Moscow are not responsible for my Crimean friends now claiming citizenship in the Russian Federation. My Russian friends didn't kindle unrest in cities in eastern Ukraine. The Russia I know is kind. It is peaceful. It...
Read more