I remember you. It’s been over 20 years now. You were so excited about anything to do with teaching. You thought that you could change the world by influencing the minds of the kids in your classroom. You thought that the kids had an extra bounce in their step as they made their way to school each morning. You were excited, yes excited, to write report cards and attend any school-related meetings.   I remember you.

You loved the beginning of the year and the shine off of the desks in the classroom light. You loved the boxes of new school supplies and you didn’t want to write on the chalkboard because it seemed so impossibly clean. You thought that the words you wrote there would somehow be a beacon, a mantra that would be remembered for years to come. You didn’t know that students would soon ask to take a photo of the board on their phone instead of actually having to copy the words with pencil and paper.

You will look at some of your students and wonder when exactly that light bulb will flicker, if only for a moment. You will sit dumbfounded when a student says, “I’m finished!” five-minutes after you handed out an assignment that took you 4 hours to create. You may hear that pin actually drop as that lesson that seemed so fantastic in your head on Sunday night, crashes with a dull thud on Monday first period. I remember you.

You’ll endure the jokes about teachers’ days starting at 9:00 and ending at 3:00 (with weekends off) as you sit there late Saturday night correcting the run-on sentences in a pile of essays. You’ll sit at your book-littered desk at 8:30 at night in a panic, wondering what exactly you were going to teach the kids the next morning and when exactly you would get home for dinner. You’ll be on vacation in a foreign country and see a painting that inspires an art lesson that you could teach your students. You’ll feel the rage as you console one of your crying 12 year-old players as he fouls out of a tight basketball game and the parents of the other team cheer boisterously.

You watch as the public grumble about teachers being too strict, too lenient, too lazy, too demanding, too uppity, too casual, too focused on strikes. You watch it all as Johnny hasn’t come back to class after recess because no one will play with him, Maggie sits in tears because she’s anxious that she might not pass her math test, George is hungry because he didn’t pack a lunch, again, Wendy is in the medical room because she fell and hurt her knee, and the other 26 students are waiting for you in what seems like the beginnings of sure anarchy.

But, you’ll cheer inside when that struggling learner answers that question in a way that their peers couldn’t. You’ll jump when that child who is the shyest in the class is the first up the climbing wall at camp. You’ll be marking papers with one eye open at midnight and you’ll read a metaphor created by one of your students that jolts you awake. You’ll be touched when they come back to school, years after they graduated to say hello. You’ll treasure their heartfelt, handwritten cards of thank you much more than that Starbucks gift card. You’ll never forget their faces, their personalities, and their impact on you.

It’s been over 20 years now. One day, you won’t be as excited as you once were. You’re hoping that you’ve changed your world a little, but you’re not even sure if you changed the date on your whiteboard. You will definitely not be excited about report cards, staff meetings, or new school supplies. But, you will be excited about the possibilities.

I remember you.