I wish I had a time machine.  I've been teaching a long time.  27 years. I think. Maybe this is my 28th.  It's like birthdays they run together and some days it feels like I'm a brand new chick in this game, other days my dog's so old I can barely muster the strength to drag myself off the porch.
Today, I feel old.  Irritated with their lack of initiative, wayward ways, complete disregard for trying and so many of them embracing the easy, why try attitude.  Not all... I forget that in the moment.  Have to pull my eyes away from the disgruntled student trying with all their might to get my attention away from the real issue, and focus, reward with attention those students really trying.  It's tough when I feel so pushed myself.  It's tough when I lose sight of the true reason I'm there, in that classroom.  I'm there to use my considerable skills and talents to take them from where they are to where they need to go.  Push, pull, entice them to embark on their own journey in the right direction.
Again, I wish I had a time machine.  I could transport back into the classroom with chalkboards! No kidding. No computers! Coolers that blew air so loud and ferociously all the papers would fly off their desks and counter tops. So loud that we would have to turn it off to teach a lesson, and sweat would bead up and drip on their papers then.  One day,  the windows were open (they had to be or we would all have heat stroke) and there were no screens.  I could see out the windows, over the cornfields to the blue Bear Mountain in the distance.  I had turned on the cooler and the students were working away.  Dragonflies, bees and all forms of insects would just fly through the room.  That afternoon, two dragonflies flew through one on top of the other.  Memorable sight.
So surely teaching wasn't easier then.   It was different though.  Better, freer.  Not without many challenges so my thought today is; how do I recapture the joy of teaching and pass that on to my students?
I wish I had a time machine and I could be a bug on the wall.  Wish I could remember it all and truly compare it.