It's all reciprocal.

It's days like these that I am simultaneously ecstatic and terrified to be a teacher.

I am tired. The pressure of keeping up with grading, attempting to lead and at times mediate 24 brilliant and strong-minded English teachers, nurturing and educating 41 teenagers in various stages of emotional chaos, all while making the effort to keep myself healthy, sane and fertile is sometimes more than I can take in a day. But I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Everyone is struggling right now: my 9th graders with public speaking and writing, my Women in Lit students with final projects and papers. They're all struggling with independent thinking and the challenge of balancing priorities and obligations. I ask them to be creative and they look at me with doubtful eyes: how can we find the time to do that? Just tell me what needs to be done.

What many of them do not understand is that we as teachers go through the same kinds of worry and doubt; we're balancing jobs and family and finances and friends. We think about lesson plans while cooking dinner. We worry about the very quiet student while we brush our teeth. We try to follow our own advice and take time out for exercise and movies and yoga, but sometimes these things fall by the wayside in favor of What Needs to Be Done.

I am inspired by my students every day. Right now my juniors and seniors are conferencing for their final projects; they're working incredibly hard to find a topic that both inspires and interests them. They need to make the final decisions on their own, and this is upsetting some of them to the point of physical expression: I have witnessed more than one teenager hold his head his his hands and literally try to squeeze out an idea, as if it's hiding somewhere in the back of their brain stem.
This both pains and excites me to watch. I tell them over and over: I know this is difficult, but you'll be prouder of an idea that you yourself engender. And some of them have engendered the most amazing projects--I can't wait to see how they turn out!

A lot of them are in some stage of sickness at the moment. There's a lot of Kleenex floating around. I point at the hand sanitizer on the way out the door every day. They are tired from studying, red-nosed and mussed. But they're fighting on, determined to get their work done, determined to do their best.

As much as I tell them to stay home, for goodness' sake, I so relate to everything they're going through-- not only because I was an Iolani student, but because I'm going through the same thing. They're stressed over Winterball. I'm stressed over getting all my Christmas cards addressed. They worry about college applications; I worry about future motherhood. Each of us is at some kind of cusp, waiting for the next phase of life to begin. And we're all working through it one day at a time.

I am ever thankful for my job, my colleagues and my students. They inspire me to do better, to hang tough, to have faith.

One of my students who promised to have his paper in to me by 3:30 just ran through my door. It's 3:30 on the nose. He just pumped his fist in the air as if he made a touchdown. We both laughed really hard about it.

He gave his all. I'll continue to give mine.