Perspective

I currently teach in an elementary setting. This job brings me much joy and humor on a daily basis. Obviously, there are days when this couldn't be further from the truth, but bottom line is I love my job. Everyday is different when dealing with 7 and 8 year olds and no day is ever the same. While most of the time they bring me humor there also those times where they teach me humility and perspective.


One of those instances came around a couple of weeks ago. One of the morning work assignments was a journal entry simply titled, "What do you want to be when you grow up and why?" A typical journal topic, that for the most part was bringing in typical answers. Answers ranged from astronauts to vets, to wanting to be a teacher. While looking up at the time and realizing that this discussion could last a few more hours, I started to wrap up the discussions and decided to give one of my students a chance to share, since he rarely participated in class discussions.


He began to start with that he wanted to be a scientist. I told him that he would make a great scientist. Before I moved on, I decided to ask him what type of scientist. He responded, something in medicine. I then asked him why medicine. He responded that ever since his mom died his goal in life was to come up with a cure for cancer. With everything I see and hear on a daily basis I rarely have a loss for words. This was one of those instances when I just stood there for a good 10 seconds and took a step back just to compose myself and fight back the tears that were about to flow down my face. After my pause I let him know that his goal was respectable and insiprational to me and thanked him for sharing his heart with the class. I also told him to never give up and he would reach that goal because of the passion he has.


To think these words and burden came from an eight year kid, totally blew my mind. It, however, put things in perspective, that there are a lot more important things in life like family. Thank you God for speaking so profoundly that day to me and thank you to my past and present students whose words have inspired me to be greater and put a perspective on my life.