why i love teaching

i don't think it's a secret. i love my job. i can't imagine doing anything else in the world. and having just finished two weeks of a new school year, nothing has changed. i absolutely love teaching. every day my classroom is filled with eager seven and eight year olds ready for a new day of learning. but it's more than just learning reading, writing, and arithmetic. in second grade we don't just read books, books become our friends. we enter into the magical world of the wild things, and take a stroll through the park with mr. and mrs. mallard. we wander through wonka's factory, and hide in the BFG's pocket with sophie. we fall in love with books. and we don't just write, but we become authors. ezra jack keats uses sound words? well so can we! angela johnson writes small moments and uses ellipses and quotation marks? well, so can we! and math is something god created that we can discover! patterns keep showing up everywhere! today we discovered math right on our feet, by taking off our shoes to sort and make a huge floor graph! but as much as i love guiding these children through these many experiences and discoveries, there is more to why i love teaching. hearing a child this morning pray, "dear god, we love you so much. thank you for creating this beautiful world for us. please forgive us all our sins and the bad things we do. please take care of the poor people. in your son jesus' name, amen." almost brings tears to my eyes. having a child raise her hand after every book i read to thank me for reading that book to them, brings a smile to my face. and there is nothing like the millions of hugs i receive everyday, not just from this year's class, but from my beautiful students from the past two years, who still shout "miss shivers!" and reach out for a hug or at least a second of hand holding anytime they see me. today i was sitting at recess, just soaking up my kids and enjoying every minute of them. i had one little girl curled up in my lap, two others doing my hair (i was "just beautiful"...with all my hair piled on top of my head!), and another little girl making stone soup and feeding me. all the while my boys are shouting for me to come play four square with them. when i finally was able to drag the girls with me to the four square court i was met with cheers of "yes, miss shivers is playing! miss shivers is playing!" and we proceeded to play and laugh for the last few moments of recess. and there is nothing like the things kids to say that make you laugh. this afternoon we were in centers and i was playing a game with one of my girls when i overheard this conversation between two of my boys who were also playing a math game:
christopher: "oh for pete's sake, why do you always win?!"
joaquin: "because i am intelligent"
christopher: "oh"
a few minutes later
christopher: "oh for pete's sake, why do you always win?!"
joaquin: "i said because i am intelligent"
christopher: "oh"
this continued for about 10 more minutes...i was doing all i could to not laugh out loud.

and of course, my day ends with even more hugs. and although the stack of papers to grade is quite large and this weekend will be full of tedious tasks such as cutting base ten models from plastic grids and taping out a huge 100 chart on a table cloth and other crafty, teachery things, it is all worth it, for those 24 little eyes that look up at me every school day full of excitement and love and anticipation for the things i will introduce them to throughout the year. that is why i love teaching :)