This Year As a Teacher: By Jessica Solomon

by | Apr 17, 2013 | Our Stories

This Year As a Teacher: By Jessica Solomon

This year as a teacher, I will have taught children about gun violence and bombs and meteors exploding in the skies. I will have said “I don’t know” a few more times than I am comfortable with and tell them that there are some queries even Google cannot fathom.

But this year as a teacher I will have taught children about stars being born and poetry being written and the importance of hospitality to strangers. I will have talked of the symmetry of snowflakes, the taste of honey on the tongue, and the sound that music makes as its vibrations reach our ears. I will have shown them how to make mistakes with grace and grit, how to break white light into a thousand different colors–colors whose names have yet to be said–, and I will have shown them how to get down on the floor when their friends drop their markers.

This year as a teacher I will have taught: the question to ask isn’t always “why?” but “what now?” I will have watched, eyes wide, as children live into the future with hearts full of hope and I will wonder at the goodness and beauty of it all.