The highs and lows of teaching

I know I don't have a lot of experience as a teacher. I'm the first to say it! Certainly no teaching diploma, just my degree and trial-by-fire training, in South Korea and little jobs in Canada. However, I've come to realize you can never go on cruise control as a teacher. Just when you think everything's pulled together, you have a really bad lesson. The discipline never stops....you're not their friend...you have to be in charge. On Thursday night, I was at one of my schools dropping off some grades for the teacher to put on their report cards, and I ran into two girls I teach and their mom. The mom stopped me and said, "You must be the English teacher, I've heard so much about you! We studied really hard on Jingle Bells. It was tricky but we had fun. The girls just love their English lessons!" It was so reassuring and nice to hear. Then, today, my last class before the holidays, a class that's usually very sweet was totally out of control. I had to give the whole class a punishment. A lame way to start off the holidays, but I don't read too much into it. They were overexcited from going ice skating in the morning. That's teaching...never a dull moment.