To ask you to tell me the GOOD things about teaching?

[DakotaFanny]

Inspired by two threads today about why it's a difficult (crap?) job, and generally feeling a bit glum about the whole profession myself...last week I wanted to quit. This week I have accepted that's not going to happen, so come on teachers of the world...

Tell me something great that happened today.

One student let on today that she had auditioned for The Voice. She sang 'someone like you' by Adele for the class - beautifully. Another student then said he writes songs and sings and could he sing for us, too. He sang a beautiful Irish folk song with such feeling that I had a lump in my throat.
Everyone in the class was spellbound.

Today was a good day

Sounds good, DPSN. However, the opposite can apply. I used to have a student who sang - tunelessly - through every lesson. When the X Factor or whatever was auditioning nearby, he went along. The auditions were held in a football stadium and he had to stand on a chair and sing with no accompaniment. They said "No" and moved on. He shouted, "Shut UP!" at their backs as they went. He never could understand why they weren't interested.

I loved being with the students and would do anything for them. Management, however (apart from one who's probably on here and who was great) I could happily have put on a bonfire.

I heard today that one of my ex bottom set students has a place at uni! She worked extremely hard to get her C in maths and English (think 2 sessions after school each week for both, for well over a year), scraped her way onto a college course and has apparently flourished. I'm soooo proud of her!

Bottom set year 9 learnt how to use Pythagoras to find a hypotenuse! They were proud they could use a big word, let alone apply the theorem. They make me so proud as well, they've come so far from the class full of issues I first met 2 years ago.

Teenagers are a lot of fun, they make me laugh every day, at least once per lesson.

Moved schools in September. Ofsted doesn't feel like it has a place in this one.
I look forward to my lessons, I'm excited to deliver what I've planned as I know how much the students will love it. We're using cartoons from Peanuts, Charlie Brown etc. to illustrate experiments tomorrow, I can't wait for tomorrow to tell the kids what we're doing. They'll be so enthusiastic.
I love feeling valued, that I am making a difference; that the students and their parents know I care and that they appreciate me for that.
Love it that my students from two different classes sang me happy birthday and bought me cakes and biscuits last week. Love that my lovely new friends in the staff bought me wine and chocolate too!
Love it when the kids say thank you as they leave the lesson and to hear them talking about what we've learned about in the common room - makes me feel right proud no stealth boast about my teaching there

I've told this story before. I was at work when I found out my beloved but elderly and unwell granny had died (peacefully and was not at all unexpected). I was a bit teary at lunchtime but had my GCSE class that afternoon and the exam was the following week so I opted to stay at school rather than go home. I explained to my teenage boys that I was fine but had had some sad news and we got on with the lesson. 5 mins later a very serious boy who didn't speak brilliant English asked to go and get something from his locker. I let him go and he came back with a box of cakes and a massive bar of chocolate and precariously carrying a cup of tea for me that he'd made in his boarding house and carried across the school site.

I cried at bit more. And we shared the cakes and talked about our grandparents!