Gratitude

A few days ago, a student came up to me at the end of class and said,

"Thank you for being my teacher. Thank you for teaching me to read better."

"What-- what? Seriously? Are you kidding?" (I was completely shocked and a little flustered.)

"Thanks for being my teacher. Today was my last day in this class."

"Oh, well... you're welcome!"

My reaction was typical of me: flustered. It seems like other teachers are so cool, know the exact right things to say, and I'm just... goofy? They're all such- what's the word? Role models. I'm like one of those dumb signs, "I used to not even know how to spell, 'role model' and now I is one!" I feel like an impostor, still, in my job. One day, I shall be called to the office, and the principal shall say, "It appears I was mistaken. You are not, in fact, role model material. I hereby revoke your teacher status." The other day, I was walking through a doorway and really nailed my arm on the door frame something terrible, (it left a huge bruise) but there was this little group of sharply dressed teachers standing there, and they stopped their serious conversation and looked over (They were thinking, Who's that one again? The new one?)... and I pretended everything was a-okay. No excruciating pain here! I'm cool! I'm cool!

I am so not cool. I regularly bump into things, fall over- while I'm teaching!- forget what I'm talking about- get easily distracted- or worse yet, I don't notice something huge and crazy going on in the room- paper airplanes flying by, chairs being thrown- Okay, not really chairs being thrown. But every day I plug on. I do my best. I use the latest methods. I read and read and read to keep up. And usually, no one ever thanks me.

So, hey. That was really nice. I wish him well.