Still blowing my mind after all these years…

9.08.10 By Kati Delahanty

I realized today—on my unnaturally early drive into school—that I haven’t dreaded going into work one single time in the past five years. That’s pretty unbelievable. Let’s be clear, though. There have certainly been days (900 of them, in fact) when it’s been hard to wake up or get out of bed. And there have been moments of resentment (like every time I both left my house and arrived home in the pitch dark). But once I’m in the car and on Storrow Drive (when it’s not flooded or frozen), I haven’t ever wished I was going somewhere else.

The students make it easy.

The other day, I sent an e-mail to a student, inviting her to come into school a day early to help set up my classroom library. Here’s how she responded:

On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 6:13 PM, 

wrote:
OMG! I will be there! I’ve been waiting all summer to come back. BTW I’m kind of a freak for books now.

I still cannot wrap my mind around how resilient, brilliant, and hilarious all of my students are and how I can actually see reading and writing change their lives.

Tomorrow is the first day of my sixth year of teaching (if you count BTR, and I always count BTR), and I’m still in love with this work.