ONE YEAR WITH AN ENGLISH TEACHER

Day 153, Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Today, at the beginning of one of the classes, I was starting to feel stressed about some minor thing or other, when the thought suddenly came to me that nothing important can go wrong in English class. I remember that I was rather frantically looking in my files for something when that reassuring thought occurred, and I immediately felt a complete sense of relaxation. Nothing important can go wrong. Sure, little things go wrong in every class, but in the big picture they don’t really matter. Chances are good that the students are going to live into their 80s. They will have million and millions of learning experiences, which makes a little mistake in 8^th grade English class seem paltry and insignificant. In fact, my so-called mistakes may not even be mistakes. Somehow, in the big picture, they may be of some educational value to the students. The universe of learning is immense, far bigger than my little maneuverings in my classes, and I really have no idea whatsoever how my words and actions in class will ultimately affect my students. All I can do is keep working hard. If I do that, then truly nothing important can go wrong in English class.