Back to the Top of the Hill

I went about my work days on Friday, and Monday, and Tuesday just as I normally do. Getting up, taking the kids to school, going to work, teaching physics.

I walked into my classroom each of those days expecting my students to be ready to learn, ready to think. And be engaged. And focus on the "important" content that I had to share. I stood there, teaching my heart out, wishfully thinking that all minds were on me and what I had to say and that this information was going to sink in and stay there (for once?).

As a high school teacher, I am painfully aware that I am not often the priority in my students' lives, nor is my class, but I also take my job very seriously - I need to get these kids ready for the next step, be it AP Physics, or college physics. I want them to learn and understand. I want to change their lives, give them a new perspecive on the world around them, make them think differently, but better. But I sometimes take my job too seriously and forget about the lives that my students lead outside of my room. About the things they may have on their mind that are equally important, or far more important.

Tuesday afternoon, from her mother: I just wanted to let you know that her father was diagnosed with a brain tumor on Friday, and she may be missing a few days of school, as he is having emergency surgery tomorrow morning at 6:30. Please let me know what she can do to make up the work.

Make up the work??!! And then I remember that she just took a 90 minute cumulative exam on Monday...three days after finding out her father has a brain tumor. And today, the day after the surgery, she was in class. She has missed one day of class. I hesitated to ask, but did - Did everything go ok yesterday? Well, she said, they couldn't get all of the tumor without causing permanent damage. But they got some, and so now he will have to do chemotherapy, I guess.

Every person walking down the street, or hallway, or sitting on the bus, or driving in their car, or shopping at the grocery store, or sitting in my class had something happen to them yesterday. Who knows what that something was. Who knows how it affected them. I have been told many times through many sources that we have to keep this in mind with our interactions with people that we encounter in our daily lives. But living according to this idea is kind of like a hill that I keep sliding down. I need to be brought back up to the top every now again so I can see the world from that perspective.

There is a paper sitting on my desk that I got from a faculty meeting. On this paper are several quotes. Two stood out at me today: "Don't compare your life to others; You have no idea what their journey is all about," and "However good or bad a situation is...it will change."

This week a student brought me back to the top of the hill. I am hoping to stay there for a while this time.