I love teaching.  I never would have imagined when I picked a major in college that I would fall so deeply in love with education.  Over the last two and a half years teaching has become less what I do and so much more who I am.   But some days, like today, the weight of this job just seems like too much.  I was asked to do the impossible and I fell short.

            Do you know the story about that little engine, you know, the one that could?  Teaching can be a lot like that story.  At the beginning of the year I’m given a class of students.  My goal is to get them from point A up and over the hill to point B by the end of the year.  Sometimes it’s smooth sailing, I like those days.  But most of the time it’s a lot of pushing and pulling. And you know what, I like those days too.  Those are the days that I really feel like a teacher.  Except, as we head up the hill none of the train cars seem to stay together, some are on the middle of the hill, others are almost to the top, and still others are already over the hill racing to the next one.  Then there are those cars that you can barely get moved out of the station.  And yet  “they’re moving!” you tell yourself.  If I can just keep them moving we’ll get there, just keep them moving.  So on you go, day after day, just trying to keep everyone making progress, making little moves forward. 

            This seems fine, until you have to step back and look at the whole hill.  All that work, all that pushing and pulling and planning and working… it didn’t make a difference, not really.  Sure they’re five steps ahead of where you started but they are still twenty steps away from where they should be.

            That’s where I am today.  Looking back at all the work, all the hours of planning, differentiating instruction, working through recess and lunch to get the kids up the hill and… we are so very, very far away.

            I love teaching, I really do.  I don’t want to do anything else.  I know that tomorrow I will walk back into my classroom at 6:30am, sit down at my desk, take a deep breath and start back on the planning.  I bet we will even make a little more progress by the end of the day! But today… Today I am tired, overwhelmed and defeated.