Attitude of Gratitude, Day 21

November 21: List a book you are thankful to have read and how it have inspired you to be better at what you do

I've always read nonfiction, and reading about education has always interested me. Years ago I read Among Schoolchildren, by Tracy Kidder. Kidder, a well-known writer, spent a school year in a 5th grade classroom in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Chris Zajac is the teacher, and has a classroom full of kids from a poor neighborhood. The book is a look at a year in the classroom, with all of the hopes that teachers have at the beginning of the school year, the ups and downs of the year, the triumphs with some children, and the despair that others can bring. This is also a look at the politics of school, and the state of education in general. Published in 1989, it would be interesting to see what Kidder would think about the state of education today.

This book fascinated me, and I've probably read it half a dozen times. The school setting is not at all what I'm used to. I've always taught in my small, rural district, and this book is set in an urban area in the eastern United States. Kids are kids, though, and I've always "recognized" some of Zajac's students as my own. I admire how Chris dealt with her students, their parents, and the system in general. She put everything into her classroom, to the point where she finally got sick. Reading about her struggle to write lesson plans when feeling crummy was something I could relate to! I don't know how this book has inspired me, but it certainly has served as bibliotherapy on occasion, and when I need to feel that I am not alone, I can relate to this book. It might be that the inspiration came from not giving up. All of the emotions and the ebb and flow of the school year are in this book, and it doesn't really matter that the book is twenty-five years old; school doesn't change, and honestly, neither do kids.