Throughout the year, about 75% of the nights were devoted entirely to my students. I woke up by 3:30 am at least one time each week because my mind was racing in buzzing loops around all of things I wanted to do to better my students' education. Multiple new speakers arrived at willy nilly intervals at each of my three schools. One of my schools became so over-populated by ELLs that my amazing, compassionate, driving, and leader extraordinaire principal convinced the ESOL department and central office to reallocate my time so that I spent the last half of the year serving her school more hours each week, dropping my third school.
I realized I would be earning at least one new master's degree every year of teaching, by virtue of the research I conducted to improve my instruction. I felt like I was swimming in a miles-long ocean race, remaining just above the chopping waves, looking out toward the shore to make sure I could still make it back.
But I made it. At some point, and it's hard to distinguish exactly when that happened, guided reading became more routine. I became more confident in my ability to diagnose a need and use evidence-based practice without feeling compelled to spend all weekend researching for one child. Instead, I was able to quickly research for a dozen of my kids!
I'm grateful and joy-filled to share that my life of teaching ELL students is exactly what I should be doing. I was meant to do this. I get to honestly share the envy-inducing small talk statement, "I love my job!"
