"Real Teacher Stuff"

I have found that each day I drive into Elkhorn and walk up to the doors of Manchester Elementary, I am greeted with reality. The exciting reality of becoming a teacher, a new teacher, each day I am presented with an opportunity for a fresh start. Today, part of my reality check was to attend Elkhorns District meeting at the new Elkhorn South High School (which is beautiful by the way!). Despite some traffic issues, over 174 employees filed into the new Auditorium to take their seats for motivational videos and awards for being apart of the district for five plus years.  I was happily sitting in my seat much like you would see a child at the circus for the first time, wide-eyed staring and trying to take everything in all at once. I sat and listened to important members of the school board make small "Welcome back" speeches and then, all the lights dimmed and a video began on the projection screen at the front of the room.  It was filled with inspirational quotes and pictures of students, crayons, pencils and books. There were many great quotes that I wish I could remember and many that were simply humorous. However, there was one that I saw flash across the screen that really hit home for me. It goes like this :

"Nothing you do for children is ever wasted. They seem not to notice us, hovering, averting our eyes, and they seldom offer thanks, but what we do for them is never wasted."



Garrison Keillor

This was reality slapping me in the face,big time.  As you know, I have talked about a thought that sits quietly in the back of my mind as I go through this experience. " Am I really ready for all of this? Can I do this?", these questions run through the back of my mind everyday. They linger like a dark rain cloud waiting patiently to drop it and rain on my parade. But this quote was my eraser today, as soon as I saw it my little black rain cloud vanished from the back of my mind! It was one of those moments that you would see in a movie, where everything is still and these angelic voices sing somewhere off in the distance...and then you are quickly snapped back to reality. Yes, it was one of those moments. I heard the angles, I saw the bright light and I was then yanked abruptly back to reality by the applause that followed the video.  My day from then on went very well. I headed back to Manchester with the rest of my Kindergarten clan, and we proceeded to print agendas, hang posters, assign seats, etc. Ya know, the "real teacher stuff" that I have waited anxiously for three years to be a part of. All in all, it was my best day thus far in being a teacher. And it can only get better from here....