You’re a good teacher!

As WordPress continues to recycle old prompts, I pulled another prompt from The Coffee Monsterz Co to respond to today

What is a compliment you would like to receive?

I know the prompt calls for A compliment (singular) but I can think of a few compliments that I would like to receive, just from different people. I’ve been told that I’m a good son, an good man, and a good dad (that is by far, my favorite) but there’s one compliment that I don’t hear enough and certainly not from the right people:

You’re a good teacher

I’d like to hear this from my principal. Or even my students, at this point. Most days I’m not sure if I am a good teacher or not. If I was, my administrators would probably want me to stick around for several more years. The fact that I haven’t worked in any one place for more than 5 years suggests to me that maybe I’m not very good at my job. I’m sick of switching schools every few years. I want to find a place to let that I’ll stay for the next 10 years or so. Somewhere where I k ow that I’m appreciated.

I know that, in my current school, my students like me. I also know that they find my classroom as a comfortable place where they can go, and they aren’t bothered by other teachers. That’s all well. I’m good. I think I’m a pretty good human so I take that for what it is. But just once, I really want to hear a student tell me: “Wow! You really helped me to understand this particular assignment“

And it’s not that I’ve never heard that from a student. I have. I think I just don’t get to hear it often enough. At risk of sounding like I was really beating myself up in that last paragraph, I know that there’s a multitude of reasons that administrators decide to not retain a particular teacher. Reasons that often times have nothing to do with their effectiveness in the classroom.

More than anything else, I think I just want to find one place to call “my work“; a place that I can say that I spent the significant portion of my career. I’m sick of feeling like a nomadic teacher.

More than a steady job

I think I have some stumbled onto something bigger here; something that goes just beyond staying in one school for an extended period of time. Ever since I moved out to go to college, I’ve always felt like something of a nomad. Even when the X1 and I were together, living down south, both working, having Kid 1 and starting a life for ourselves, I never really felt like I was at home there.

To make matters worse, even after things ended with X1 and I came back to Michigan, I don’t think I ever felt like I was home. Meeting X2, taking a second shot at a relationship and a family, having kid 2, breaking up with X2, and once again going back to where it all began. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, no place feels like home anymore. Everything just feels like a temporary landing spot until the next best thing comes along.

Maybe this is something to still file under that “working on me” business. I’m getting comfortable in my own skin. And I’m comfortable being alone. Now maybe I just need to focus on finding both a home and a workplace to call mine.

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