A couple of months ago, I posted a creative writing piece about what I believed was the "things I know to be true" as a pre-professional teacher. Ironically, this past Friday, I experienced one of these "things," that I had written about previously. In my poem, I had always found the most important line to read "the students must know that teachers are students and, most importantly, people just like them." On Friday afternoon, I experienced what I'm sure many would label "silliness due to exhaustion." During the middle of a lesson, my mentor teacher and I were modeling how we wanted a specific activity to be run, and we began to laugh uncontrollably in the middle. Some may ask, well what is so special about that? I would reply: everything. Think about how magical that moment was not just for me, but for my students. Often times, we become so overwhelmed by the stress of our job, that we become too serious. Our students looked at us differently after that. A lot of them were completely bewildered by the fact that both of their teachers were laughing at the same time. However, a lot of them smiled as if this was probably the most magical moment they may experience in the entirety of their career as students. Although we cannot always be silly, we can portray to our students that we are people "just like them." We do so by remembering why it is we love our job and finding joy in everything we do. I challenge those who are teaching to go out and be that person every day. Afterall, life is hard, and students should learn at a young age that it is always okay to laugh. 

this journal is a chapter in...

Hartwood Elementary School

Second Grade Student Teaching Placement

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