a room of one's own

My favourite time of day is after my last class.  After study hall I walk back upstairs to room 323 where I spend most of my time teaching.  Room 323 has been my home since I've started teaching earlier this year.  It's filled with student work, quotes, pictures, and Englishy things that remind students about simple, compound, and complex sentences, for example.  Anyway, after study hall I have a seat at my desk and begin grading the endless piles of paper that sit on my desk, waiting for me.  Slowly my students start to trickle in.  They plop down in the student desks, and pull out their snacks and Vitamin waters and their homework.  They don't say much to me as they catch up with each other, laughing and sharing chips and candy.  Periodically a cell phone would ring, a lost friend wondering where everyone is. I can't make out much of the phone conversation since they're trying to conceal their phones from me, but I always catch: "We're in Ms. Pickens' room, come here."  

Over the last few months I've lost begun to lose the title, "The New Kid on the Block."  I'm starting to gain my students' trust and affection, which means more to me than any teacher evaluation.  Having worked with younger students in the past I took for granted their naturally sweet disposition and trusting nature.  Sometimes I wish I could go back to two years ago when I was Miss C teaching kindergarten students, just so I can have them hug my legs, kiss my knees, and tell me they love me and I look pretty today.  As a high school teacher it feels like I almost have to earn the older students trust and respect, which at times feels demeaning and pointless.  I'm the teacher.  I'm the one with the student loan debt :)

It's been a hell of a year, but my favourite time of the day that I can always count on is after the last class of the day when my students come back into the classroom to hangout.  I love sitting at my desk with the stereo on low, with the students laughing and working on their homework in front of me.  That buzz in the room is hard to describe, but it's one that I wish I could bottle and keep with me all day and forever.  

I live in a city where space is a high commodity, where a room of one's own is a luxury and as elusive as the exilir of life, but I've found it.  On the third floor, in a busy high school, in the heart of Chelsea I've found a room not too big, not too small, but just right where I teach, laugh, love, and work on a daily basis and where my students' now also call a room of their own.  

x,

Ms. P