Thankful

My first teaching experience was in a wonderful, wonderful school. The principal was amazing. When I asked her once how long she had been the principal, all she said was, “I was principal when most of the Moms were students.” She was tough, but she was great. She loved the school. She loved the students. She didn’t have an easy job.

The school was full of talented teachers. These were some of the best I’ve ever worked with in all my years of teaching. They were insanely creative, dedicated, and passionate. They had to be. The student body was hard. It was a school where 90% of the students were free and reduced, at least 80% were from single parent homes, many students were being raised by someone other than a parent, and many had trouble learning. I taught special education at the school. It was hard, but I loved it.

     My first Thanksgiving as a teacher (prior to the days of googling cute activities) I developed a wonderful lesson plan about Thanksgiving. It was a cheesy lesson in which the kids were going to use their hands to draw turkeys, write something they were thankful for, and then share their sentences with each other. The night before the lesson, I got nervous. In my naive bubble of a world self, I was worried that the kids would not find something to be thankful for. I decided at the last minute to change the lesson. I decided that we would make the turkey hands and then the students would trade the turkeys and write about what they appreciated about each other. Each of the feathers would contain one thought from each of their classmates. Each thought would detail what they liked about their friend.

     The lesson went surprisingly better than I had thought. Of course, my students struggled with spelling and some of the organization of their thoughts, but in the end I was thrilled. The students spent a lot of time reading their turkey hands once they received them back and the amazing things that their classmates said about them made their hearts happy. That afternoon I was the only teacher left in the school getting ready for the next week (you know how we new teachers are) when my principal came by to kick me out or so I thought. She was in my room before I knew it with one of my students and his grandmother.

    I was so worried as this grandmother always protected her grandson-no matter what he did.  I really didn’t want to begin Thanksgiving break with an issue. The principal looked at me and said to the grandmother, “Mrs. Lynch will you tell Miss Eaddy what you just told me?” The grandmother stepped closer with Roger, her grandson, attached to her arm. She started to speak and started to cry. She wanted me to know that Roger came home upset. He was upset because no one gave me a turkey. The grandmother didn’t understand and that is when Roger detailed the activity that we had done. She said that she didn’t even know that others thought that way about Roger (her words-especially since he is so d$&^ mean to them all the time). She said that she realized by looking at his face how much those nice words meant. But he wanted to bring me a turkey since I didn’t get one. He even went to the apartment of two other classmates and had them write on a feather. I was speechless. I was touched.

     I still have that turkey. I keep it in my smile file. On the days when I have little to find in my work that I am grateful for, I pull out this smile file. I am reminded that one of the things that I will always be most grateful for is this work we do. It isn’t always easy. It isn’t always fun. It isn’t always what I want to do. But it is always important. It is always life changing-for me and for my students. And who could not be thankful for that?