A squirrel!

I have a squirrel in my pocket!

I kid you not, a real, live, fluffy, baby squirrel.  He's absolutely adorable!  He drinks from a bottle, cuddles as close as he can to me, and of course, falls asleep right in my sweatshirt pocket like a little kangaroo.

This all came about yesterday when my mom took the dog out.  The little squirrel just walked right up to her and followed her. She brought the dog back inside and my brother went out with some gloves on hoping to get closer to this cute little baby, and what do you know...it hopped right up into his hands.  We aren't exactly sure what happened to its squirrel mommy or if it had any siblings (there was a hawk flying near by *tear*), but here we are with a sweet little baby squirrel.

Where do I come in you ask?  How did I end up with this squirrel?  Well, that's just what I do!  My mom called me at work and I went to pick it up from their house when I got out.  I constantly find myself nursing little animals back to health.  First it was my guinea pigs, then two ducks, then my kitten, then two more kittens, then five kittens!  I can't just leave them to fend for themselves.  It makes me sad to think of them struggling to be warm, or find food, and wondering where their mommy could be.

Why am I telling this story? One, it's adorable! Two, not many people have a story like that to tell.  And three, it gave me a fantastic idea for an answer to an interview question that I would like to share!

I printed a list of 100 commonly asked teacher interview questions and I was struggling to answer the question "What do you find most scary about teaching?"

While most of the questions were easy for me to come up with something this one had me stumped.  What was I afraid of?  Well for one, having to pee and not being able to go because I'm in the middle of teaching and there's no other adult in the room with me!  I'm pretty sure that's not a response I would like to give a room full of administrators that I will potentially be working with...

So what was I afraid of?  I know there had to be something, because I'm clearly not the world's most courageous person.

As I was watching the little squirrel drink from the bottle I was thinking:  What else can I do for him?  What else does he need?  What if he doesn't make it?

And it dawned on me...that's my biggest fear about teaching.  I won't be able to save every student.  While I can do my best to teach them, and help them, and give them as many opportunities as I can, I can't save everyone.

Ever since I was young I always had to save everything.  I remember being around 8 and crushing up worms with a stick to give to a little baby bird my neighbor had found.  Whenever my mom would let me pick out flowers at the store I would always get the ones that were half shriveled with no buds on them.  I knew no one else would ever want them, and it broke my heart to think of them sitting there all sad with no one to love them (perhaps I watched too many Disney movies as a child).

My students are going to be no different.  I am going to have students that come from broken homes, students go through deaths in their family, students without any friends, students that are abused, students that struggle with disabilities, and the list goes on and on and on.  It hurts me to watch other people struggle, and while I can do all that I can to help the situation there's no way I can fix everything for these kids.  I can't put them in my pocket, bring them home, and shelter them from the world.  All I can do is give them the tools, knowledge, and love to deal with anything that comes their way.

As I think back on all of the animals and plants I have been able to save I know that there will be many happy outcomes in teaching as well.  I will experience the joys of knowing I made a student smile or helped get him out of a bad living situation.  But the simple fact is I can not save every student.  My students will cry, and be upset, and experience the pain that this world has to offer them.  This is the one thing that really scares me about becoming a teacher.