File of Encouragement

 Ever since I started teaching, I’ve kept a file of encouragement. As I receive pictures, cards, and words, I file them away, knowing that I will look at them again someday and smile. Last week was that someday, and not only did I smile, but I also shed a few tears as I remembered the times and people who have made an impact on my life.

 

I will admit that I don’t remember all of the students who have drawn me pictures over the years. I will admit that I must go through and cull the file of encouragement ever so often lest it grow out of control in my file drawer. I will admit that some things that once meant a lot to me have faded in importance with time. And yet, some students and teachers and pictures and memories remain just as poignant now as they were many years ago.

 

Nicholas, a special-needs student who my parents and I adopted one Christmas, who wrote something simple for the schoolwide writing challenge every week, whose Mother died and whose home I went to visit and saw his AB honor roll certificate proudly displayed on his wall.

 

Terrence, an African-American boy whose forehead I kissed every day, who brought in $.32 for a penny challenge, in the hopes that he would become the school king, and had the sweetest, most hopeful look on his face.

 

Lindsey and Jesse James, whose mother came to school every day with the cutest little dog named Zoe, whose family had suffered a tragedy when the kids’ big brother died of a brain tumor when they were almost too young to know him.

 

The staff at Johnsonville, who bonded through trauma and created a sense of community and belonging that can never be re-created, who were some of the best teachers I have ever known but who did not receive the credit due them because of a system much too broken for repair.

 

Jaquese, undoubtedly the cutest kid I have ever taught, who endeared a place in my heart my very first year of teaching and has never lost that place since.

 

Friends: Teaching is not for the faint of heart. It is a tough career that needs files of encouragement and summers to recuperate. Yet, at its core, teaching is the most rewarding career that one can imagine.

 

In short, teaching is a career born of love.