Mrs. C's End of Year Reflection

If you were wondering, no, I am not drunk. (Yet.)

Well, now, don't stop reading...I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunity for drunk-blogging this summer.

I am so happy my first year is over. I can honestly say that this past year has been the hardest year in my life. More difficult than when I had Madison, tougher than when Jeremy and I had problems, and rougher than the time my family tried to force me into AA. (Wait, that last thing hasn't happened yet...maybe I can just feel it coming...)

My first year in a nutshell (and if anyone just thought of Austin Powers, I love you):

I've taught 118 students how to be better readers, better writers, and better people. I've graded well over 1,000 pieces of paper. I coached a speech team. I had to tell 26 sophomores on the second day of school that a classmate died. I made students cry, and I made students laugh. I told them 'Friday Stories' and watched as they blossomed into storytellers in their own right. I read 24 books since the start of the school year because it was the only thing I could do for myself that still somehow paid off in the classroom. I had a failing student tell me that it was okay he failed because he was taking more away from my class than just a grade. I had a student tell me that she fell back in love with reading because of my class. I had a student tell me to not admit that I hated teaching poetry because it made the class hate it, too. I had a student tell me if there was an All Star game for teachers, I'd be in it--because rookies can dream, too. I watched Freedom Writers with my sophomores because so many of them said that it reminded them of our class. I offered extra credit for students who wrote a letter to a senator after they watched a documentary about child soldiers in Africa. I had to give first semester finals in January after a December blizzard cancelled school for two days. I had a student tell me thank you for being like a mom to him and the whole class. I baked cookies for my students, and they brought me caramel corn, cookies, Starbucks, and Arby's. I had a parent tell me he thought his son had plagiarized something because he couldn't believe how much his son had grown as a writer--and he then told me that my class was the only one his son ever talked about. I worked with several other dedicated teachers to ensure that students were well fed before they took the CSAP. I worked myself into panic attacks and finally after confessing it, several other teachers admitted they, too, had the same thing. I worked alongside some of the most brillant people I've ever met--and I often felt intimidated by the collective brain power in the room. I told the story of Jeremy's cliff falling accident and had a student start bawling; when I asked her what was wrong, she explained her father had been killed in a fall only 7 years ago. I kicked my entire fifth hour out of class when they made me so mad I couldn't see straight. I made kids call their parents during class for neglecting to complete their homework. I had more than one student say this was their best English class ever. I had a student thank me for understanding her learning diability and helping her. I taught Dante's Inferno, Oedipus, Latin American literature, Night, A Midsummer Night's Dream, two different types of research papers, The Crucible, Siddhartha, Fahrenheit 451, and a Coming of Age unit. I learned.

I taught.

Lisa "I'll be back for more in August" Cillessen