A Teacher’s Hard Truth

When one goes into teaching there is this sense that you can change the world and move mountains. It is the Dr. Seuss mentality, that everything will be OK in the end. I wish this were true. The hard truth is that not every behaviorally challenging student will change. Oh, there are numerous success stories but it seems the ones that get away impact us the most. Why should they? They have made our classrooms a warzone! It is because all teachers value each student as a person of worth and potential. We perceive their failures are our failures. There is some truth in this. We second-guess wondering what if?? The loss of a student to another teacher or an alternative school saddens us. The thing that we have to realize is that each child is not cut out of the same mold. What works with one student might not work for another. We must realize that we are not the “Great and Powerful Oz” that has all the answers. We need to tell ourselves internally it is about THEM and not US.

Change, in a student, might happen for us or maybe it will happen for someone else, only God knows! In the mean time I will keep my hand on the wheel and eye on the road.