Not a Bad Day

I have thought today about how much my perspective has changed since the beginning of the school year.  Not in a drastic sense like a restructuring of my beliefs towards poverty or race, but something as simple and easily overlooked as how to view a successful school day.

Let me be more specific.

Today in my fourth period, two freshmen almost started to fight.  One had guessed a wrong answer and the other was ragging him about it.  I gave the two a writing assignment, told them to be quiet now and not speak for the rest of the class.   I then moved on and finished the lesson. (five-paragraph essays, incidentally).

A simple and easily forgotten story, right?

It wouldn't have been at the beginning of the year, for me or for many other first year teachers.  I would have been overwhelmed with my normal responsibilities, so much so that if I had somehow managed to keep the two students' hands from their respective necks I would have erupted in elation. 

Today, it was less than a pot-hole on a smooth road.

I don't tell this story to brag about my classroom management, because there was nothing unusual or innovative that I did.  I tell this story to show that many a thing I would have stressed about, or been derailed by, at the beginning of the year I now take in stride.  I don't even consider it a "successfully avoided implosion".

Experiences that would have been first semester's badges of honor are now given no special attention.  I--We--are so adept at handling them that they don't make a deep impression.  Regardless of how I, or we, feel personally about the jobs we are doing this year, scenes like this are evidence that the job is getting done right.