Sunday, June 24, 2007

Faith

I started this school year armed with only two things that could really help me survive: Faith that it is possible to succeed where so many others have failed, faith that I am strong enough to do so, and faith that hard work will bring a bright future.

For the first week of school there was just one poster on the wall, just one word, really, and I wanted it to be the only thing the kids saw on the wall the first time they stepped in to my class.

When I inherited the room it was full of junk and had boring old English-teachery posters on the wall. I contemplated leaving all that junk for my successor, thinking that cleaning out a bit of old classroom junk is a right of passage for working in roo, D30. In the end, I thought better of it.

One of my deep-seated insecurities is that I won't leave an impact where I've been and that I won't be missed when I'm gone. So I left that one poster on the wall, partly in hope that it will inspire the next person to turn on the lights in D30, and partly so that person knows what kind of teacher I am.

It's a homemade poster, black ink on a stark white background, with just one word as bold as I could make it:

BELIEVE.

1 comment:

Ray said...

Hello Eric,
I have no idea how I came to read your blog but I have enjoyed it. I see you have not updated it for almost a year now. I hope you have found a better position, the blonde, and some good times with those guitars.

Keep the faith, man.

regards, Ron Erter