for me, being a teacher was never about lesson plans and objective tracking. being a teacher meant being a cheerleader, being a confidant, being an inspiration. more than i want my students to achieve, i want them to know they can achieve. more than i want my students to be good test-takers, i want them to be good kids. it's not about character education or motivational speaking. for me, it's about the decisions you make in an instant that change a moment - electrify it with the sense that this is it. something that a student will remember far longer than the definition of an adverb or how to solve a word problem with a venn diagram. something that actually matters in the grand scheme of things in that it makes them feel capable, important, worthy of more than their wildest dreams.

there's me, using my fingernails to peel the gum off every single individual strand of her hair as the tears drip down her face. there's the way she breaks through the sobs just long enough to thank me and i can't help but shake my head and say darling, of course. there's me, asking him to rate the ice cream cake on a scale of one to five and feeling like i might burst when he breaks into a chocolate rimmed grin and says it's perfect, it's exactly what i wanted you to get. there's me, reading his reader's notebook, where he wrote in a letter to me that it means a lot that i was so positive that he'd pass the test, because he didn't pass last year, and now he really thinks he can.

there's me, making her laugh through her tears after a boy has made her cry for the first time, simply by replying to her uncharacteristic outburst of i just want to hit him, with, honey i wouldn't blame you if you did. there's me, feeling a surge of pride when she stops her flailing limbs right before they make contact and gasps sorry because she's actually learning that it's not okay to hit. there's me, touched beyond belief when she starts to cry after i explain why you need to be kind to everyone, especially people that act like they don't need it and says ay, ms. ness, you make me cry when you talk like that. there's me, feeling like i'm actually doing an okay job when she takes the lesson from the book we're reading - a lesson of tolerance and understanding - and uses it to tell off some boys who are making fun of a mentally retarded student.