26 years...

On Friday June 18, 2010 I completed my 26th year of teaching students with special needs. Doing anything for 26 years seems unfathomable, especially in today's the grass is always greener world. However, I am one of the lucky ones. I love teaching. I love teaching students with special needs. No two days are the same. The challenges are immense. As far as we have come, moving from trailers hidden on the back of school campuses all the way to actually having classrooms within general ed buildings...wow! For anyone who has not spent 26 years working towards a day when all children were treated equal - such a simple act of having a classroom in a school building, well you probably don't get it. I am tired though, I'll give you that. This thing I do is a never ending fight for equality. NCLB did not take into account children with special needs. It was suppose to but it didn't. Really didn't take into account most children. On paper it looked good - but as they say in sports; that's why you play the games. I don't know who wrote all those words for IDEA and NCLB, I do not believe they have ever taught. If they had they would know that a standardized test is not necessarily the best indicator of a student's abilities. A child's test scores' is not really a good indicator of teacher effectiveness. That my friends is not a quantifiable equation. Every school has good teachers, great teachers, effective teachers, and lousy teachers. It is the teacher in the room, when the door is closed and no one is watching - One of my colleagues retired on Friday. She is a great teacher. She embodies everything a teacher should be. She loves her work, her children, she enjoys her colleagues. The interactions with parents is something she enjoys. She is a rare and special person. I can only aspire to the high standards she has set. I know I will miss her. When the days were getting long I could stop by her room and recharge my batteries. It was her gift to all of us. I don't know how many more years I can teach. Physically my body is giving up on me - emotionally, teaching is exhausting. Every year the children come to school with fewer skills and greater needs. The family is disintegrating. Communities are being disrupted by urban progress. Administrations keep us on schedules, set standards, and hold us to these crazy expectations - which have so little to do with teaching. Teaching requires us to be friend, family, counselor, advocate - we have to be the masters of bartering and working the system just to get the materials we need to teach our lessons. School should be year round. We need more time to teach. Children need more time to learn. This long summer break, which I enjoy every second of - well, it doesn't benefit children. We fall behind countries with fewer resources because we are not willing to put in the work. Of course, like Brett Favre, I should let my body rest and my mind recover before I make drastic decisions about my future. Come August, refreshed, I will no doubt be chomping at the bit waiting to get back to my students, and my school. Every September brings the challenge of "How far can we go?" Not because I am being judged by student progress - don't care about that. It is because I know every day I have the opportunity to make a difference in the life of a child. Not a band aid difference, but a life changing difference. Then once and again - ten fifteen years later - that child will be an adult and show up and say "Thank you." This is why we keep going back. So off to year 27. I'll take the vacation, I need it. When we get back to it I will give it all I can. Some days I will get my butt kicked. Other days we will kick butt! Right now, I am looking forward to rest. A good long sleep, camping, hanging out with nothing to do, finishing a lot of projects - my mind will meander to the fall, mental plans will start to become written ideas, and then more formal plans - not today - today, I am going to watch some baseball, eat some food, enjoy the company of my sister and niece - take a much deserved nap - think about my colleague with jealous thoughts - I won't think about September - ha, I already am. You don't choose teaching, it chooses you.