Please excuse a diversion for this post. I want to talk about teaching instead of writing for two reasons.
First, I have had parent/teacher conferences the last two days. I love this year’s seniors, and I had expected to enjoy most of my meetings with parents. I wasn’t disappointed. They were so complimentary, and my poor little underused ego loved hearing that I am impacting the lives of these students.
Second, I received the statistics from my students’ performances on the Advanced Placement Psychology exam. My numbers are usually pretty sweet because I demand my kids work their fannies off. These statistics didn’t disappoint. But what stood out to me the most were the essay scores. Judged on four levels as top quarter, next quarter, and so on, my students — with one exception — were in the top bracket. I couldn’t be more pleased with these kids! I want to give them all a big hug!
Putting these two thoughts together, somewhere in my scattered mind I finally decided that I am a good teacher. Such an interesting notion. I’ve always known that kids enjoy my classes, especially psychology, but to have parents being so praising of my work and to have numbers I can look at to show me I have done a good job really brought the notion home. And it only took fourteen years for me to figure this out.
Hopefully my writing career will unfold at a more rapid pace and I will find the inner strength to be proud of my stories. 