 A few words bring immeasurable joy
By Stephanie Leija
It was the last day of school and I was cleaning my room and counting down the minutes to freedom -- sweet, sweet freedom.
Feeling tired and burned out from a long year, I was pondering what I was going to do during my two months of recuperation. Just then, Rosie Morales, the English as a second language tutor at my school, came in and told me the kids wanted to talk to me.
A group of 10 eighth-graders handed me a bouquet of flowers as Rosie told me that everyone wanted to say thank you for all the help I had given them.
"Gracias, miss, thank you,'' they said as each one gave me a hug.
Even the boy who was always too cool gave me such a big hug that my feet were lifted off the ground.
Then they left.
I couldn't believe it. All those feelings of excitement about school being over began to change as I started thinking about how much I was going to miss those kids. They had come so far from the days when they first entered my classroom, fresh from Mexico, speaking no English and scared to death.
It had been quite a year, filled with ups and downs. Fortunately, the ups far outnumbered the downs. The "ups'' included listening to kids speak English for the first time and watching them immediately latch onto a new student, as if to say, "Hey, we know how you feel.''
The negatives were few, but they were there.
The biggest of those was the night a counselor and I sat in a hospital waiting room with parents whose child was in intensive care from drinking too much alcohol.
The fact of the matter is there are ups and downs in any job, but it's the ups that keep me coming back. It's all those little things that are the reason I work my butt off every day and get paid squat.
I am grateful, though, that what I do is not just work. Every single day is a learning experience for the students and myself. This year, I learned so much, and it wasn't in my teacher preparation program but in the actual classroom.
What I discovered is that I am not just an English teacher. No, my duty is much bigger than that. I have a responsibility to not only teach these kids English, but to teach them to be better people as well.
When my students leave my classroom, I want them to value education as the key to success. I want them to know that they don't have to like everyone they meet, but they must be respectful. If they make a mess, they better clean it up. They should always try their best. I tell them that bilingualism, knowing two languages, is power.
Most importantly, I want my students to leave my classroom with dreams for the future and to know they have the power to make those dreams come true.
While I may not always be a teacher, I will always be involved in some facet of education. It may be in administration or as a consultant for other schools with ESL programs.
There is no monetary reward greater than hearing a student say that my class was his favorite because I helped him learn English.
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Age: 28 
