The Longest Week

Here it is Saturday and as I look back reflectivly upon the past 5 days, I realize that I cannot even begin to total up the hours spent working, thinking, and/or worrying about the future of my students. This week has become a roller coaster of emotions upon which I have had to ride out the storms that have come. For example, the School Improvement Meeting on Wednesday where I found out that the District doesn't think we are doing enough for our students, or when the State of Arizona (already 47th in per pupil spending) is talking about cutting 14 million dollars from our budget (including the soft capital-ya know money for books, pencils, furniture, etc).
But after all storms comes a rainbow and the warmth of the sun and this is when I reflect and see all of my students success: one of my boys increasing his score on the benchmarks, their excitment of writing and learning about their pen pals, my math class increasing their scores on the benchmark tests, when a girl whose been struggling finally figures out what she did wrong and how to fix it, and finally hearing students run their own debate in my class over questions that ponder our fore fathers.
These are the true reasons why we teach; the true reasons why I chose this career-for they are the true reasons that keep me coming back knowing that some how some way I can and will make a difference in their lives.