In This Moment

"Thank you for being a constant support system through out my three years of high school. I truly feel as if you have been able to see me grow as a student and as a person, which is why I wanted you to write my recommendation."

This just in. From a student I didn't know I made a difference for big time. I thank G-d for my calling. I try to be there for people. It can sometimes feel like a lot- the teaching, the recommending, the Torah guidance, the academic guidance, the emotional and social counseling, the wide variety of classes and the preps which includes new preps like this past year, the special accommodations like oral testing, added review, make ups, public speal=king, poetry, improv.

I believe I wrote about 50 recommendations this year. Now they're coming in for the summer, due at the start of the year. I've said it before- the hard time of teaching is the begining, and also the middle, and also the end of the year. and, oh yes, in the summer it doesn't fully stop.

And yet. There is so much nachas. Last night I spoke for some time with a brother and sister whose brother graduated. They were effusive in how much they learned from me, how much I meant to them. i write this mainly to remind myself. This young woman told me that she is teaching overt the summer and models her style after mine, particularly in regard to the way she uses the board in an interactive way. She told me that I was the best thing in her high school education. Thank you G-d. Please help me remember the good realities and please give me strength to keep on connecting.

Last night a my poetry club/team made a point to find me. There were hints before.They had asked to be sure I'd be at graduation. Immediately after the ceremony they managed to pry me from other people I was talking with. They got me a tailor made mug/memento which I will cherish forever. I was deeply touched. It's a mug covered with inside references that only we could get. It is a symbol and a sign of how connected I am with this group. I'm trying here, but there aren't words. Poetry is big for me. And to connect with these students over several years with poetry as a pivot (it all started with my putting a haiku on the board before class started back in tenth grade honors Chumash) is really big. I'm struggling for words but there are none.

I end this post, silently, sitting at my keyboard with tears in my eyes, grateful to G-d that he's blessed me to earn people's trust, to hold their stories, to matter in their lives and have them so greatly matter in mine.