Value Add Memories

We, my students and I, had a rough year last year: one that almost ended my teaching career. Yet when I look back, all I remember is the good. Cognitively, I know that I felt frustrated and ineffective, but I do not feel frustrated or ineffective when I review the year.
As I combed carefully through my Value Add scores from last year, I wasn't thinking "darn that brat for earning only one star" or "I wish I'd have had twenty of her, she who earned me three stars."
I was remembering their faces and our experiences together. I was proud of the students who did well, and worried about or upset for those who did not perform as well as expected. I do not even know how I "did" because I was not thinking that way.
This selective memory reminded me of a children's Christmas book that caught my eye because it had "teacher" in the title. Apparently, Santa lost his list, and he went to teachers to determine if students were worthy of gifts or not. I will reluctantly admit that I became a little goose-bumpy and moist-eyed when every teacher proceeded to say good things about every student. It was well done, just on the bearable side of sappy without crossing over to cheesy.


I have personally benefited from selective teacher memory. Now that I am safely ensconced in my former high school, my dream school, I can freely admit that I was a terrible high school student. Running into former teachers terrified me for years into my teaching career.
I would see one of my teachers in a training and feel certain that he or she would call me out. I was afraid to apply at my old high school because some of my former teachers still worked there. I figured they would corner the principal and give him a preventive earful (like my senior year when they refused to work with me if I was in the same class as my best friend).
Instead, my teachers began recruiting me. When I finally worked up the nerve to go for it (it was either that or leave teaching), my teachers were overwhelmingly supportive. They made calls and recommendations and gave me insider knowledge. When I was hired, they introduced me around and sang my praises and thanked me for coming to help.
None of them, not one of my former teachers, shows any sign of remembering what a frustrating student I was. Daily I resist the urge to ask "You do remember me right? The girl who slept or talked and turned in no work and still set the curve anyway? You're not confusing me with a better-performing classmate, are you?"
But I don't think they are confused. I think we teachers are just wired to remember the good. Regardless of stars or politics or pay scales or test results, at the end of the school year, the Value Add is the opportunity to impact the life of a student and the knowledge that each student has positively impacted our lives in turn.

I realize that Value Add measures, the politics around them, and their impact on our lives outside of the classroom via pay and emotional tolls are touchy subjects. Hopefully you understand that your value both to your students specifically and to society in general cannot be measured with tests, graphs, numbers, or graphic aids. How do you measure your value? Please comment below to tell us what you hold dear to remember your value, even without numbers to confirm it.