My peaceful place

I never feel quite as at ease as I do in a classroom. 

I am reminded of that fact today.  I am proctoring the entrance test for the private school at which I work, and even though it's only 6 hours, and even though the students work independently the whole time, I can't get enough of the atmosphere.  I know I'm not exactly teaching right now, but I'm surrounded by thinking brains and the timidity that only youth and uncertainty combined can bring.  Instructing the students on something as simple as how the test works and where the restrooms are makes me feel at home, like I belong here.

I'm starting my eighth year of teaching in the fall.  Eight and a half, if you count my student teaching in college.  I was 20 then, a mere 4 or 5 years older than my students.  They were still born in the eighties--this was a lovely fact.  We had the same basis of knowledge in terms of entertainment and basic cultural happenings.  Fast forward to now...my students this year were born in 1996 or 1997. 1997! This freaks me out a little bit.  They no longer know who OJ is. They didn't watch Full House or Friends or Seinfeld (except maybe now on Nick at Nite).  They grew up with computers and cell phones and texting.  They probably have no idea that you couldn't text on the first cell phone, or that the first ones weren't portable.  They wear eighties clothing now because they think it's in style, not realizing that neon, off the shoulder shirts, and leggings weren't invented last year.  As a teacher, you do have to shift how you relate to these students.  But I love them. 

You've probably figured out that I teach high school.  Little children scare me. Case and point: this morning, I had admissions testing for 5th and 6th graders. They drove me crazy and they didn't even speak.  They spun around in chairs, made faces at each other, and generally just annoyed me and made me nervous that they would fall off the chair. Now, if my 11th graders did this, I would simply give them my evil teacher stare and they would stop and we would move on. 

Teaching is a draining business; anyone who has taught in any capacity knows this.  I pour everything I have into teaching and at the end of the school year, I'm drained. I think, I can't do this again. I can't grade another essay or tell another student to stop talking.  Summer happens, as do days like today, where I know that my place is in the classroom. I am so at peace; just by giving one of my testers another sheet of scratch paper and seeing that shy smile, I am emboldened.  I can get up in front of a class of 16 year olds and know that I am supposed to be there.  That's my peaceful place.  And even when it doesn't seem peaceful, when they're taping themselves together or they're bleary-eyed after a late night football game, they're still my students.