Hi, guys. I'm a reading intervention specialist, so I don't really count as a classroom teacher. But my students call me teacher, so I like to picture I'm one of you guys.

I just finished watching Inside Out 2, and it's giving me a bit of an existential crisis. Spoiler alert! It made me contemplate my sense of self, like who am I to myself and to others around me. I'm in my early 30s, and it feels like the rat race to whatever is defined as success has gotten a lot more intense. Friends are getting married; others are becoming lawyers and doctors. Whenever I tell people about what I do, they seem to admire my job as a very noble and selfless profession. I mean, we all know how much passion and effort we put into our students.

So when I was soul-searching for what makes me proud of myself the most, I thought of my students. I thought of the little girl who couldn't even blend CVC words together and is now reading Charlotte's Web, a book two grades above her level, quite fluently. I thought about the little boy I taught who miraculously grasped how to blend and is now shouting CVC words at the top of his lungs. Those realizations made me happy.

But it also made me wonder... Is that healthy? Is that normal? Is this a healthy outlook, thinking of my students as a facet of my self-worth as a person? Or do I need to find another perspective?