Gleaning Facebook: Rewards of Teaching

 James Schroeder is the cute little redheaded kid that grew up as Brannon's friend (I think they "graduated" from Kids Stop preschool together!) and who shared her fascination with acting and who was, like her, inspired and guided by an exemplary high-school drama coach. Now he is ... a thirty-something teacher. When I read James post, I started responding and, being me, got carried away. So I thought it wiser to pollute my own wall with it rather than pontificating all over James' wall.

Here's James's original Facebook post:

James Schroeder

August 9, 2015

Just saw that some of my former A-school kids (including a few that butted heads with me almost every day) changed their schedules to be in my drama class.

I know I'm a smart aleck and typically don't have these moments, and who knows, maybe in a week I'll be pulling my hair out, but it really made me believe that we can make a difference in kids lives.

Heartwarming teacher moment.

And here is my response:

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Teaching can be such a pain.

• suffering through absolutely purposeless meetings and workshops.

• dealing with mind-numbing paperwork and red-tape.

• every three to five years someone deciding to wonderfully re-invent and revolutionize education and instructing you to relearn and reform your teaching style/procedures/lesson-plans/etc. (They will have actually just plagiarized Socrates' millennia-old wisdom into rearranged words.)

• seeing kids damaged by themselves and other people of all varieties.

• screwing up royally yourself.

• wondering if anything you're doing really matters.

But (Oh! ) those moments of appreciation in young faces. Those occasional "Aha!" "Wow!" "No-way!" "I-did-it!" "I-can!" moments. Oh!

I am glad I got to be, almost accidentally, a teacher.

I suspect, James, that you will drive some administrators nuts during your career. I also suspect you will have (and have had) an impact on some kids' lives.

And when you are old and decrepit and logging onto the 2045 equivalent of Facebook, you'll have messages from four decades of former students. And you'll think back to Brian Sikes and others who influenced you, like I look back now to Matilda Brown, Monte Howel Fricks, Suzie Underwood, Nick Hyder, J.N. Finley, Mrs. Knight, Burl Carr, Arthur Brestel, "Miz Chic", and others who influenced me. (I wonder who influenced them?)

Keep it going.