Feeling Grateful for Another Great Year
The End of the Year is a Bag of Mixed Emotions

Here it is June again, the end of another school year--a time to reflect on what went right in the classroom, what promoted effective learning, and what I still need to change.

 

 

I feel so grateful for the opportunity to share my passion for language and literature with (generally) open-minded and capable young people.  For some kids, reading can be such a struggle, grammar and writing such a chore--but hopefully not for mine.  It's all about the passion that you bring to your material and the spirit of compassion with which you delivery it.  I have high expectations of my students--we tackle complex texts and work with the subtleties of language--but they always come through for me.  Some are motivated by the challenge or the love of the subject, as I was at their age, but many are pulled along and buoyed by the current of the teacher's love and energy.  You have to make it relevant, achievable, and yes, fun, for young adolescents.  I generally choose classic novels for class texts (I eschew the District's textbook collection of uninteresting and unliterary bits and pieces, truncated and bowdlerized as they are), but I lead students to recognize in them themes that apply to their own lives and the real world around them and provide the skills and guidance that makes them accessible.  This year, we read 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, and my students looked around themselves and realized, "yeah, this looks eerily familiar."  Good literature, made relevant, illuminates our experiences and opens up new worlds and new possibilities to us.  That's what I try to give my students every day.  I think I'm on the right track: I received this note the day after school ended from a young man whom I thought wasn't all that engaged:

Dear Mr. Felt,

 

I would like to thank you for teaching me this year. You were an amazing teacher and your class was one of my favorites. You introduced me to timeless, classic novels that I wouldn't have picked out myself but learned much from and really enjoyed reading. My writing, vocabulary, and reading comprehension skills have all improved greatly because of you. I have purchased Edith Hamilton's Mythology per your recommendation and plan to read it along with study the remaining vocabulary in my workbook over the summer. I really appreciate your passion - your love of teaching is unmistakable! Thank you so much for all you've done for me and my education this year.

 

Sincerely,

Dylan

This is what makes it all worthwhile for me--knowing that I've made a genuine impact on a young person's life.  For all the hassle, administrative pettiness, low pay, unreasonable parents, and mindless paperwork, this is why I stay in the profession.