My last two years of teaching were incredibly tough for me. For consecutive years, I had classes that were so challenging that it undermined my confidence in being a teacher. I genuinely questioned if I could continue. 

Good news! My classes are AMAZING this year. Maybe I’ll go into detail some other time, but this post isn’t about that. It’s about jinxing.  

I keep hesitating to describe my classes this year as good. This hesitancy comes from a fear that I will jinx it. As if somehow if I say it out loud, or write about it, then the good kids will turn bad, and my good year will turn sour. 

That’s when it occurred to me: why don’t we ever talk about jinxing bad things? We’re so sure we can ruin something good, why not try to jinx something bad?

Imagine! It would be like a superpower! Last year, I could have said, “Boy, my class is really bad! Hope I jinx it!” And then, just like that, I would walk into school the next day and my tough class would all be academic angels and behave perfectly.

If only. It wouldn’t work. But the good news is that it doesn’t work to jinx good things either. 

At least I hope not.