Does anyone else feel the weight of March? For teachers in my area, we just got back from President’s Week off, are crawling toward Spring Break and then we jump fully into standardized testing season.

At the high school level, my level, we are just finishing with scheduling for next year for the incoming 9th graders and the rest of the school. The seniors are wound tighter than cheap watches waiting for the rest of their college notifications while others are feeling the full force of their senioritis kick in. So, let’s talk about grace.

For some of you, this has a distinctly religious connotation, but the definition of the word, according to Dictionary.com, is

noun

elegance or beauty of form, manner, motion, or action:We watched her skate with effortless grace across the ice.

a pleasing or attractive quality or endowment: He lacked the manly graces.favor or goodwill.

a manifestation of favor, especially by a superior: It was only through the dean’s grace that I wasn’t expelled from school.

The last definition is a manifestation of favor. This could also be interpreted as giving someone the benefit of the doubt. As I experienced this week, a parent whom I have never heard from or met described what the parent’s student says of my class. So, let’s talk about grace. Because I’m around students the majority of my waking hours, I know that students greatly exaggerate what they hear based on how they are feeling in that moment. It is the wonder of being around teens. I don’t get offended by their outbursts, even at me, because most of the time, it’s not about me. It’s that I’ve created a safe enough classroom environment that they feel comfortable letting some of their emotions out.

When I get them as freshmen, I haven’t yet had the opportunity to fully develop the relationships I have with my upperclassmen. I work hard at saying hello when I see them and asking how their day is going. I wish them good luck when they leave early for a sports game and I tell them all to have a good day at the end of the day. I currently teach an elective. This usually means–don’t crucify me for making an umbrella statement–that I have overachievers, or students who are struggling to fit in somewhere. Often, when they are 9th graders, they continue on because they have spent several years in middle school in music. By the time they are 8th graders, they have had one music teacher for several years. So, parents get used to the way one teacher does things and there is a certain nostalgia that overlooks any negatives from a familiar instructor to a new one. It’s like changing coaches after many years with the same one. The new coach is looked on unfavorably because the style and structure and emphasises of instruction are different. I ask for grace when you encounter a new teacher, at a new school, at a higher level. Kids vent at school. They vent at home. The truth is often somewhere in the middle of their vent. It is not the hard truth. However, if the first time you are contacting me is most of the way through the school year to address your concerns, my question is why? If your student has never approached me, my question is why. My own upper middle school student has never had the benefit of me justifying him feeling “unchallenged” or it’s “too easy” in school. He has me ask what he can do to better challenge himself and we go over how to talk to teachers and what to email if he doesn’t understand. I know this can be time consuming, but before any of his teachers hear from me, he needs to learn to advocate for himself. I don’t always agree with what I hear him say about what happens in class, but I think teachers deserve grace because we are all human. We have good days and bad. Maybe the class before didn’t go well. Maybe the teacher has health issue that he or she is dealing with. The point is, within reason, we expect our teachers to be superhuman. I’m flattered and we work hard at jobs, but I ask that you give teachers grace. It’s the same that I hope you would ask with your students–that teachers provide grace from time to time.

May your coffee be strong and your week be productive. Cheers!