Thankful

Sometimes people seem to know just what you need.

As you may have guessed from my posts the past few weeks, I have been in something of a slump. I've been homesick and frustrated with myself and the way things are going at school.  Things have happened that have even caused me to doubt myself and whether I should continue teaching.

Thankfully, I had the opportunity to go home to New Orleans for the Thanksgiving holiday. I got to see my friends, spend time with my family, start Christmas shopping at my favorite local boutiques, and relax. One highlight of my trip was a coffee date with two colleagues and good friends from my last school.  One of them, who teaches 4th and 5th grade - and consequently my former students - does a Thanksgiving project each year. She asks her kiddos to choose a staff member from our school for whom they are thankful and write a letter to them explaining why.

Last year, I received letters from a handful of children. They were wonderful.  This year, I received more. These letters basically saved me from self-doubt and reminded me that, regardless of the day-to-day grind, what I am doing matters to the students I have.

A sampling from the 14 letters I received:

Thank you for all of the things you've taught me. You have been so nice to everyone, and you have always made sure that people can learn and catch up on things that they need to learn, but haven't.


I am thankful for having you as a teacher. I like your funnyness. I also like you fun projects! Finally I like that you have a big smile.


You would always make me feel better when I was feeling bad.


You are my favorite teacher because you always made me happy by caring about people. I could never imagine someone not liking you. In second grade I didn't know much about S.S. and in fourth grade I know evrything because you taught it to me.


I want to thank you for teaching me multiplication and for being a great teacher! Also I appriciate that when I finished one of my multiplication tests, you gave me a high-five. That made me feel really good.


You were a totaly awsome, funny, nice, cool teacher. You made that year awsome, thank you.


I am thankful for the fun we had in class. Your laugh is like a cool brees (yes, spelled like Drew Brees! highlight!) on a hot day. I miss you so much!


I have a subject and predicate test today, and I would fail it if you hadn't taught me all about subjects and predicates.


Thanks for being my teacher. The book discussions were unbeatable!


You are still my favorite teacher, because you make someone feel good in side.


I hope you stay awesome. I hope you have a great time in North Carolina.


We started learning a ton of new things in third grade, and nobody could've taught it better than you.


I remember when I was in your class. You taught me most of the things I know today. In your class I was sad at 3:15. All good things have to come to an end though, right?


I hope everything's fine in N. Carolina. Are you teaching? I hope peeps are lucky enough to have you in 3rd grade.

I am so thankful to have wonderful children to teach who build me up and teach me every day. And I am especially thankful for my colleague who made sure her kids show their appreciation.

As we go into the holidays, I am trying to remember every day to be positive and remember why I do what I do.

And it has nothing to do with test scores, reading levels, or state standards. Happy Sunday.

Sunday, Sunday

One of the downsides of being a teacher (I know, opposite of the blog's title... go with me here) is that your work basically never ends. No matter how early you get there (I arrive before the custodians some mornings) or how late you stay, you are never. finished. There is always one more set of papers to grade, a new math game to cut out, or more teacher sh*t to find on the internet. (I'm looking at you, teammate...)

We teachers tend to obsess. I, however, am also a procrastinator. I am in complete awe of my colleagues who can plan weeks ahead of time, or who get everything done for the following week BEFORE Friday afternoon so they don't have to do anything that weekend. I think I've done that once. It was awesome, but not awesome enough for me to manage to ever do it again.

As a result, I've come to feel about Sundays much as I did when I was in middle and high school. AKA, oh crap, I have a TON of work to do tonight before school tomorrow.

When I was teaching in New Orleans, I got into a great routine. I went to a fantastic local coffeehouse or over to my teacher bestie's house and we got everything done relatively early in the day, leaving me with the afternoon and evening to quell the impending sense of Monday doom. (I'm an anxious person. Sue me.)

Here, I have done that a fair amount, but I've yet to get into a really solid Sunday planning routine. Why, you ask? Two reasons:
1. Hubs has been working 6 days a week, with Sunday as his only day off. So I've been trying to free Sunday up to spend with him. This means I've been attempting to plan on Saturday. You can imagine how well that's been going.
2. Football season. I am a crazed New Orleans Saints fan. We signed up for NFL SundayTicket specifically so we did not miss a single game. Most of the games have been at 1 p.m., which completely throws a wrench into my day, as there is not enough time beforehand to finish planning, and not enough motivation afterwards to get back to it.

Today, however, I feel great. Hubs is off to pick up breakfast, we are actually making it to church (something I plan to be much better about), the Saints are at the top of their division and have a bye week, and I only have 2 days of school this week.

I am so excited to actually enjoy my Sunday. Who Dat.

Root Cause

Today, I had an average day, capped off by a really crappy round of test scores from the seemingly 1029494th district assessment my kids have taken. I don't want to get into it - there are flaws in the test, many of the items are too difficult in my opinion, I have kids with attention issues and great academic need, it's supposed to take 45 minutes and takes 90, yada yada. It's not a valuable use of your time to hear my rant on the subject. And I'm really tired of talking about it.

The reason I'm telling you about the negative end to the day is to put into perspective one valuable, meaningful moment I had with a student today.

This boy in my class is a freakin' darling. He is bright, polite, kind to others, careful in his work (and if you're a teacher you know how rare that is!), and just all around a stand-up kid. Lately, however, he's been really struggling with his behavior. Talking all the time, making noises, unable to control his body when he moves from place to place, even repeating what I say in a funny voice and getting into issues with other kids at his table. He always apologizes profusely, promises to change his choices, and then 5 minutes later is making mouth noises again.

I like this kid. A lot. The thing is, there's only so much I can take. Today, I decided some info needed to go home. I wrote his mom a long note describing how fantastic her kid is but that he's been really struggling. I sat down with him so he could read the note over with me, to make sure he agreed with everything I'd said and wouldn't be blindsided when he got home.

What ended up coming out from him was that his parents haven't been getting along, and his dad is "staying with his friend" for a while. I'm not sure exactly what's up, but it sounds like his dad "made a mistake" (his words) and his mom is worried about paying the bills by herself.

And all I could think was, I'd be a basket case too, kid.

It put his behavior change so clearly into perspective for me, and I let him know that. And here's what else I told him: it's normal for stress or problems in your life to affect your behavior at school.

Um, hi. Can I please take some of my own medicine?

I myself have encountered a great deal of change in the past few months - the new marriage and 900 mile move alone are plenty. On top of it, I don't get to see my husband nearly enough and don't really like being alone. Add the stress of helping start up a new school with a very different and much needier population than I had at my last pie-in-the-sky land school and you have a whole heaping pile of homesick plopped into an already anxiety-filled brain. Much as I consciously attempt to put that aside while teaching, I know that it has seeped in, and I have not been my best self as of late.

Wow. The guilt of knowing that is as crushing as the relief of admitting it is cathartic.

I keep trying to think of a concise way to end this post, but it keeps morphing into another long, tangential essay. Here's my final attempt:

All I know to do at this point is keep on truckin'. Try to find the upsides, take care of business the best I can, and try to release control and accept that this is where I am supposed to be right now. And remember that, just like me, my kids are probably crazy for a reason.