Ain't nothing gonna break my stride

I should preface this by reiterating, this has been my best year yet. One of the most amazing differences I've been feeling is that of calm in the room. I'm relaxed and the kids are relaxed, enough so that I can make jokes and tease them a little now that I've gotten to know them. I feel more like myself while teaching than I ever have before - cheerful, low-key, sane, sometimes silly. The kids are quiet in the halls.  My inner hose-beast has not so far had to rear its ugly head even once!

I realize I'm not the rookie anymore.  I see first year teachers struggling through what I went through and I realize how far I've come. And  I see my kids transforming, working hard, making new realizations...

And just when I had managed to forget the ignominy of the superintendent's vote of no confidence this summer, Candy mentioned that Superintendent Numbercrunch called to check up on me. Like peeling off a scab and watching fresh blood reappear, all that ICK raced back up to the surface. 


It struck me that one thing you need as a teacher -- and it's not something you can fake -- is confidence. The kids need to be able to trust you to lead them in the right direction, and for that to happen, you have to be able to trust yourself. Much harder than it sounds.


But more than any other year, I'm starting to feel confident in what I'm doing, that, hey, this is working after all. And I remember some important advice I have received: to follow my internal compass (because it's always there if you look for it), and also when there is unpleasantness surrounding you, to step into a giant invisible condom until you are safely away, then peel it off your protective prophylactic and dispose of any unpleasantness-residue as expeditiously as possible. 


RIght now my compass is telling me to keep doing what i am doing, because this time I'm pointed in the right direction.  It's telling me to keep listening to my little ragtag posse of students who walk in the back of the line so they can be near me on the way up from lunch, so they can ask me questions like, do bearded dragons molt like snakes, and find out if I've read the Calvin and Hobbes where Calvin starts a tsunami in the bathtub, and ask how the universe began, or have I ever seen a shark tooth, and why did God invent paint?

And although part of me is conflicted about letting them talk in the hallways, a bigger part of me, the part that always seems to win, finds the questions irresistible.  And the part of me that learned how T-bird's mom died in childbirth, and how his dad works all the time and his 16-year-old sister cooks for him and makes him do his homework, and the part of me that knows this kid is absolutely brilliant and really just needs someone besides his elderly babysitter to talk to, realizes that entertaining his questions on the way up the stairs might be the most important thing I do all day.

So I'm cueing my theme music for the day...

Ain't nothin' gonna to break my stride
Nobody's gonna slow me down, oh-no
I got to keep on movin'
Ain't nothin' gonna break my stride
I'm running and I won't touch ground
Oh-no, I got to keep on movin'