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At Its Finest

I sit here in my school's library, serving Saturday school with the students who committed various misdeeds this past week. There is a slight wind outside, but the sun is shining. This school has become familiar to me, and interacting with students has become second nature as I step inside my classroom day to day. Yet I realize, as I sit here seventy-seven months into this experience, just how much a person can miss as he steps into his role as teacher. Like other jobs, teaching is a very social trade, with hundreds of students streaming in and out of a classroom every school day. This offers the opportunity to build community within the walls of that room, and I have grown to see that every class has its unique personality. There are moments during a school year that stand out, however, and for my leadership students, yesterday was one of those days.

This was the day of the rap contest. It was an impromptu rap contest, since we had finished making the teacher appreciation posters we had created over the previous two days. One of my students started with her own rap, followed by a friendly but competitive boy who came up with his own. Sensing the increasing fun to be had by this activity, one of my students said that I should face the competitive boy in a rap-off. I had never done this before, but after it was over, I heard students saying things like "I'll miss you guys next year" and "This was the best leadership class this year."

This came on a day when I was truly unsure about what we should do. It was Friday, and we had just finished the year's only dance the week before. We were in the midst of planning small activities, but there was a sense of waiting until the new week to put these into practice. For someone who firmly believes that being organized is a key element to successful teaching, I had written it off as a wasted day. I learned, though, that this was perhaps one of the most successful days we've had in class this year, not because of any spectacular event we produced, but because it gave my students the chance to see each other less as classmates and more as friends. For my students, this was community building at its finest.

For me, there is a larger lesson to be learned. For one who takes pride in being organized in more than just teaching, it showed me how much fun can be had when one lets loose once in a while. Having watched the class unfold in the hands of my students, however, I learned an even more valuable lesson: that teaching, like life, is not about me.

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