me...on stage.

yesterday i gave a speech...to the entire upper school.

it was terrifying and wonderful. my legs shook visibly through the whole thing. luckily the podium covered them up.

the head of the school asked me to do it...give a speech at the cum laude assembly. i went against my number one rule which is to sleep on big requests like this and get back to people. i said yes right away. maybe i was blinded by the beautiful light in his office or thrown off by the idea of being asked. either way i ended up doing it and it felt great...but maybe not for the reasons you might think it would. sure, it was nice to be recognized and get some compliments after...but here's what was really great about it.

i've had a tough fall. this is year 8 in my teaching life and i've been afraid that i might be experiencing true burn-out. i haven't looked forward to coming to school much and the kids have been driving me crazy. and everyone knows that when you start to get down on the kids you know it's bad.  

but thinking about what i wanted to say to the kids-at-large yesterday made me fall in love with them all over again. it made me feel the hopefullness that working with kids can give you. and when i stood up on stage and looked at them all at once smiling back at me it was hard not to cry...honestly.  

these kids were so generous. 

they laughed at my jokes. they smiled at me and waved. they cheered my name. and they came to find me later in the day to tell me how much they liked what i said. teenagers did this. privileged teenagers did this. lots of them...not just a few. they didn't have to but they did. and i love them for being so open and loving. i think i remember just how hard that is to do that when you're a teenager and your body and emotions are all out of whack.

you can watch the speech in these two youtube clips...