The Support I Received as a New Teacher

Even though my first year of teaching was so hard, I persevered for a number of reasons. The support that I received from some administrators, my family, my husband via the letters that he would write me from Spain before we were married, who just gave me a lot of courage and who wrote things like,  "Remember, kids were not born bad. Nobody is born bad." He said, "They're all good. You just have to bring it out in them." And he became, by the way, a fabulous teacher. He was voted one of the 26 Hidden Legends of Holyoke, Massachusetts, a great honor with banners flying over Main Street of the 26, a beautiful honor that he never would have, he didn't want to accept it because he was very humble, but that kind of encouragement helped me a great deal and so I stuck with it and I learned and I learned to be a better teacher.