Kindergarteners are like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re going to get!  That is what makes working with them so demanding, exhausting and at times, so enlightening and so much fun.  On this particular afternoon, I had the pleasure of watching a classroom of kinders in music doing a movement activity which included a lot of large motor skills.  I don’t know if we think about this often enough, but when a child begins school at five, they have only been walking anywhere from 3-4 years.  Movement like hopping, skipping and galloping will take some more time to practice for them to master, so in music, we give them that time.  At the end of this particular activity, a child said out loud with a big smile on his face, “I did it all and I didn’t give up!”.

First of all, kudos to the music teacher (and other adults) for encouraging her students to keep trying.  This is the first step to perseverance.  Life is hard and it would be so easy for a five year old to stop in frustration and say they can’t do something.  But what a joy to see a child finish a hard task and be excited because they didn’t quit.  It wasn’t perfect, there was certainly some awkwardness in the execution, but that’s okay. What a lesson we can all learn from this five year old.

More often than not I hear students say they can’t do something, that it’s too hard.  Maybe it’s learning a new instrument, new vocabulary words or math problems. But it’s not just the students.  In my chosen profession, I hear over and over again how hard something is and less frequently that I can do it.  I have never said that teaching is not hard.  It’s been difficult since the inception of teachers and students.  At this time in our history, it may be a different type of hard, but it’s always been hard. Part of it is simple work ethic – you understand that work is hard, even if you love what you’re doing, and you keep pushing through it.  Sure there are ways to work smarter and not harder, but even them, the cognitive part of work is still – work.

The word “work” has been become a 4-letter word, as though it’s something to avoid and that life could be so much more pleasant without it.  Fine, if you’re retired or independently wealthy, but for most of us, working is a necessity.  It takes time, thought and effort.  Sometimes you get lucky with the people you get to (have to) work with, and sometimes you don’t.  You can change jobs, but regardless, you still have to work to get things accomplished or to progress.  But what we fail to understand is what this young person seemed to already understand – that not giving up and proving to yourself that you can do it is part of the joy and a product of work. 

There’s that feeling of accomplishment when you have worked hard and done a job well, when you’ve seen the fruits of your labor.  When you see how something you did has affected someone in a positive way.  Teaching is a profession where you get to watch another human being progress in the learning and application of subject matter and of life.  We get to watch young humans grow and change, hopefully for the better.  While this is HARD work, there will be those moments, days and years when you can look back and say “I did it”. 

I do not say these things in any way to diminish the difficulty of teaching.  I have had those days when I have cried in my car on the way home, contemplating how I could just walk out.  There are days when you feel like you’re just hitting your head against a wall and nobody is listening.  There are days when nothing you do feels appreciated and you question why you earned a degree that cost more than you’ll ever be paid in your profession.

Then you have that kid who gave you a hard time ask for a fist bump in the hall or surprise you with a hug or ask if they can join choir.  That child you have difficulty understanding because they speak another language, and they look up at you with those beautiful brown eyes that tell you how much they appreciate you.  A colleague who leaves you a simple note of kindness in your mailbox that gets you through the rest of the day or genuinely reassures you that you have what it takes to do the hard work. These things are meaningful because the work is hard.  How much perseverance do we possess so that we can be there for others and how do we encourage hard work and perseverance in our young people?

I was fortunate to have had some teachers who taught me perseverance, because after 32 years in education, I can tell you there have been really good times and really hard times.  There have been times when I questioned my career calling and times when the joy was so tangible, I could have floated out the building.  I have worked with people I loved and some not so much, but I learned how to work with or without them.  It is important for those of us who have persevered to lift up and encourage our fellow teachers through the difficulties and hard times within this profession. I have tried to be honest with practicum students, student teachers and new teachers about how hard the work is in this profession, not to discourage but to prepare them for the good fight.  There’s nothing like being fed a fairytale and then being hit in the face with reality.  Life is hard, teaching is hard, but my hope is that knowing you’re able to persevere, you can push through it and one day say, “I did it and I didn’t give up!”.