Bittersweet

Last night was incredibly weird.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first, I was just hanging out with my friends and watching our Sunday night shows.  But all of a sudden, a wave of anxiety hit me.  "WHAT ABOUT MY LESSON PLANS FOR TOMORROW???"  Then it hit me: I'm not teaching tomorrow.  What a weird feeling.

I finished up all my classes last week and ended my week with a visit to another elementary.  Wow, talk about an experience!  They have 6 Spanish teacher (since this school is an IB program school) and they all work together to get their kids to the highest level of Spanish they can.  It was really awesome to see, especially coming from a school where there are 3 Spanish teachers but they all teach different preps.  I was blown away by how much the kids know and how much technology they get to use.  It was really cool.

This morning it has been sad not teaching "my" kids, but I am enjoying some extra time to sit back and reflect on this crazy, life-changing semester.  More on that later.  Also, my kids are filling out an evaluation about how i did, so I am anxious to read those and hear what they had to say!  Also, more on that later :)

Anyways, I am taking today to organize what I need to get done on my portfolio, saying goodbye to the kids and giving them the eval, and taking my first breath since I began to teach. :)

With the end in sight...

Well, I have officially stopped teaching the full load and as my classes begin to wind down, I can see the end in sight.  I heard student teaching would go by fast and I heard it would be over before I knew it, but I can tell you that the path seems very long on day 1.

The thing is the feeling I have at the end of this is not what I expected.  Granted, Monday morning was a little bit easier getting up and know that I would only have to teach half of the classes...but still there was this odd feeling of sadness.  I was really going to miss my Spanish 3 who are so smart it's intimidating but so sweet and funny that I felt included immediately.  I was even going to miss my Advanced Spanish kids who gave me day after day of headaches, however crazy they are, they have really good hearts.  I am really going to miss these kids, a lot.

To be quite honest, I have been lying to people for awhile now, at least to some extent.  Whenever people ask me why I want to teach and why I'm in education, I give the standard "I want to change lives..." speech that is ingrained in my brain.  But when I started this semester I realized what I fraud I was for saying this, but now, coming to a close, I think I have gained the teachers heart.  I mean, I look forward to coming to class know student A will probably laugh at my jokes while student B rolls their eyes at how corny I can be.  I design my lessons and activities and even my jokes with my students in mind and that's what makes all this worth it.  When a kid who has a 60 average ask "Puedo usar el bano?" and smiles really big when they say it right, that's what makes it worth it.  I really do want to change lives and to love these kids.

I keep thinking if they'll ever remember me when I'm gone, but I believe they won't and that's okay, I don't really remember my student teachers (except the way my classmates tortured them).  But I hope in some teeny way I left a fingerprint on their hearts, maybe I just stirred up some enjoyment in Spanish or maybe I inspired them, or maybe I was just able to make them laugh.  And what they'll never know is how much they have impacted me.