Proud Mama Moments

I frequently joke that I have many kids: one ten-month old, and 80 teenagers. And while--clearly--it is a joke, there's some truth to the statement. When you have a student for a year, you become attached to even the most difficult in some way, shape, or form. You're proud of their accomplishments, you know more about them than you'd like to, you feel bad for them when they have bad days. My seniors were sophomores when I started, I've had them for the last three years, so all the feelings of having a student for one year multiply by three or four when you're a high school teacher.

My seniors are currently wrapping up senior projects. For senior projects students have to write a research paper, do a project, and present it to the judges. We're in the midst of presentations. Last night, I was a little worried about one of my kids presenting. When he was a sophomore, speech class was...a challenge. He'd get to giggling and not be able to stop, he'd become frustrated and say things he didn't really mean to say aloud. 

But last night. Oh my goodness, I had SUCH a proud mama moment, my heart was just full. He has come leaps and bounds since sophomore speech class! He appeared confident and poised; his vocabulary was great, he was conversational and answered questions from the judges easily. 

Even though senior projects make me pull my hair out. Even though I swear this class is making me go grey at 26. Even though every year I swear I'm done with senior projects FOREVER. This makes it worth it. Seeing the growth of one student. Being able to tell him how absolutely proud I am of him.

Every missing hair, every grey hair, every frustrated moment, every lecture about responsibility, this moment made it all worth it.