Possibilities. . .and a notebook

I wrote the following on the first page of one of the best gifts I've ever gotten from a student - a new notebook.


I told a story once. Most of it was made up. It was meant to get my kids excited about writing. I had asked them to bring in a notebook - a writer's notebook, I called it. And we were going to fill it with all sorts of things.
   And then I told the story - a story of how excited I got at the sight of a new, fresh notebook. How I couldn't wait to open it. To write in it. To create things in it.
   Most of the story was probably nicked from other things I'd heard writers say about notebooks. I didn't care. I made their stories mine.
   It must have been pretty believable. At least to one student. Because, three days before Christmas break, she gave me this present. A fresh, clean, never-written-in notebook. And I had no choice but to be excited.
   But the excitement was genuine. Not necessarily for the notebook, but rather for the look on her face when she gave it to me. The look that said "Here. Here is what you told us you love the most."
   What she couldn't have known was that it's not notebooks that I love the most. It's possibilities. A notebook can become anything. And so can a student.
   Maybe, in the end, that's why I teach. Not for the tangible rewards but for the possibilities - of what might be.
   And so that's how I came to possess this notebook. And, as much as possible, I will try to fill it with stories of school and students. And possibilities.