what warms the heart

Just-received email from a former student I hope to see when I'm in Cali next weekend, whom I warned I would be pushing and spellchecking his job and college applications (he just graduated and got exited from the foster care system without support - ARGH! - I HATE how our foster care system does that!!)

"sure im so excited about u coming to cali so no matter wat im doing that day i sure wanna see u then ill cancel anything just let me know the exact time."

Sometimes when you're a teacher, you sure know when you've made a difference. But a lot of times I didn't know until much later when kids would write me letters or stop by and thank me for things I had no idea I'd done. It always warms the heart to know that you were an integral person in somebody's life. In this kid's case, it wasn't until he asked me for help with class scheduling that I realized he was way off track with graduation plans - they'd had him in wrong classes for two years. I got another teacher on the case with me, and he was able to graduate on-time rather than being kicked around that crappy continuation school indefinitely until he dropped out.

Someday I will have foster children. So many of my former students were in the system and so many times when they'd tell me the stories I would think, "I could do so much better than that!" Of course it's so different to deal with a kid 24/7 than it is for five hours a week in a classroom - but I've really loved these kids, and that makes such a difference. They get under my skin and I carry them with me in my heart. For all the things I may have done for them, they've done so much more for me - they've taught me so many things, and while I have miles to go before being a good person, they've improved me so much.