When Motherhood and Teaching Collide

My mom used to tell me that becoming a mother would change me as a teacher. Of course motherhood changes you as a person first and foremost but she assured me that it would make me see things differently. I accepted that she was probably right and went on my merry (tired) way.

I can honestly say I didn’t give that idea much thought until now. When I returned to teaching I went right back into my groove. It took a few weeks to get adjusted to starting in the middle of a school year but now here we are in the middle of October and I feel like I never really left for any sort of maternity leave.

But I do think being a mom has changed me.

Maybe it’s in the way that noise doesn’t get to me the way it used to. I can block out a noisy classroom a little too well and my kiddos have helped me do the alternative– block out a crying baby. I also found that I am more patient. Maybe it’s because my students are so much more capable of doing “grown up” things like helping out in the classroom and helping each other. I like watching them, and I like imagining what Andrew will be like when he is their age.

I find myself putting myself in the shoes of the parents. When Andrew is in school, I know I’ll want his teachers to take good care of him so maybe this is my way to “pay it forward”.

Today is the end of the 1st quarter and I got my list of pink slips so I could take them into consideration when writing report card grades. Pink slips are what we give out to a student who is not behaving appropriately. In years past, I have written upwards of 80 pink slips in a quarter. I think once I even wrote over 100. Granted we have an EXCELLENT group this year but this quarter I wrote 4. Yes, FOUR. That’s like, unheard of. I guess that goes back to the patience thing.

But what made me sit down to write this? Well today while writing up my lesson plans for next week I actually took the time to plan {gasp} HALLOWEEN activities for my students. I despise Halloween but for some reason I’m excited about it this year and I don’t have to think hard to know why. It’s because I want to make it special for my little lion who will be able to walk from door to door this year and who I know with each passing year, will come to enjoy Halloween more and more. I used to ignore the holiday altogether but now I’m starting to understand that even though I hate it, it’s important to kids and if I’m going to be a good mom and a good teacher, what’s important to them has to be important to me too.

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