“Every year people think it’s the teachers who inspire the students. In my many years of teaching, I find that it is often me who is inspired by them”
I read Shoshana Friedman’s article with much intrigue as I always do. While we as teachers might be inspiring beyond the syllabus, I am writing to make a different point.
Last year, my father Rabbi Paysach Krohn had a stroke as Shabbos was starting at the Agudah Convention. My husband and I were attending the convention as well. My father was taken to Stamford Medical Center. Needless to say, my Shabbos became a very nontypical Shabbos. Instead of going to inspiring speeches, my husband and I walked back and forth to the hospital to be with my mother and to see how my father was doing.
Shabbos was over, and the world found out. As I traveled back to Baltimore on Sunday my phone was blowing up with texts, WhatsApp’s, and emails of well-wishers, family, friends wanting to know details, and just seeing how I was doing.
Monday morning, I realized that at noon I must go to school to teach Trigonometry. I stared at my notes. It seemed so futile to teach about reference angles, when so much else was going on. But I knew I had to. The girls need to learn, and this is my job. Life must go on. (and they’re only teenagers, I thought to myself)
Create a free account to keep reading.
