School's Out!

Here I sit in front of my computer on the first day of summer vacation. School is finally out, all exams corrected, all marks dumped into the system and all students passing. My job is done. Being a teacher is not always an easy way to make a living. (Yeah I know we have summer vacation off) My students today live in a much more complex world than when I was a kid. The pressures they endure are sometimes mind boggling, broken families, peer pressures, an over organized lifestyle, parental pressure, and all the advertising materialism. I'm sometimes surprised that more of them don't burn out. As teachers, we often have to be more of a counsellor, an attentive listener than a simple dispenser of knowledge. We have to be able to get to the bottom of things, get help for those who need it and discipline those who won't listen or follow the rules. We also have to deal with uncooperative parents (in the minority thank god) who protect and sanction their child's misbehavior. (In French we call them "les enfants roi" or royal children) We also organize trips, activities, committees, clubs and many other things, often on our own time. We often have to do this with less and less resources and despite interference from bureaucrats and paper pushers who are completely disconnected from the educational world.
So why do I keep doing this after 3o years? Well as Ian's blog said, “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” Horace Mann.
I guess teaching is my small victory for humanity, a way of maybe making the world a teeny bit better, of maybe helping a student become what he or she wants to be in an ever more complex world.
Last week out first cohort, had their graduation ceremony. They were the first and I remember them as being little munchkins with school bags bigger than they were. Now they are handsome and beautiful men and women, off to college and the rest of their lives. In their hugs, tears and thanks lies my motivation for the job that I do. They are our small victory for mankind.