You Better Watch Out, You Better Not Cry...

Oh, the holidays. It's a really fun time to be an elementary school teacher.

And I don't even mean that sarcastically.

Seriously, guys - how many of you with regular jobs out there get to make holiday crafts and read Christmas books at work?

So anyway. I'm not one of those crazy-obsessed-my-entire-month-of-lesson-plans-is-holiday-themed teachers. But today, I decided to read a short Christmas-themed picture book to demonstrate "Reader's Thoughts." That is, we read the book, and every time someone had a thought/question/opinion/epiphany about the book in any way, we stopped and talked about it. I'm trying to get them to think more deeply when they read, so this was our first step.

I chose to read Olive the Other Reindeer, which is a precious book about a dog who thinks she's one of Santa's reindeer. I suggest you give it a look.

Anyway, when discussing what we thought the genre was, my friend - we'll call her Humbug for the sake of this story - says, "Well this book obviously has to be a fantasy because Santa's not real."

Y'all. My heart sunk to my toes.

Literally one of my biggest fears is a child discovering that there's no Santa in my classroom. (When I was about 10 and I found out, I was devastated, and I told a family friend who was a few years younger. To this day I feel it is one of the most shameful things I've ever done.) Children have such a short span of childhood nowadays; I can't get over what my students know about (s-e-x stuff and everything!), watch (Paranormal Activity!), and play (Call of Duty!). The thought of them losing one of the few sources of wonder and magic in the world while in my classroom is horrifying.

And I'm not naive. I know that in the third grade, it's probably half-and-half as far as believers go. However, I am not about to let my non-believers ruin it for the rest. So after Humbug came out with that, there was fortunately a backlash of, *gasp* YES HE IS! followed by a reply from several kids of NO HE'S NOT! My blood pressure rose steadily after a few back and forths until I could finally get their attention.

I ended the discussion with the following: "Ahem. For your information, I believe very deeply in Santa Claus, and I hope you all do too. Because you know, you run the risk of no presents if you choose not to believe." That seemed to end the discussion definitively.

Oh! But I forgot! HIGHLIGHT of the discussion. One little boy - who is in fact very into his church, so I know his family is very Christian - said that he did not like Santa Claus. (Side note: WHAT?!?) Another kid replied, "You don't like Santa? So you don't like Christmas? You're Jewish!" And he kept telling the child (who is African-American, in fact) that he was Jewish. Apparently the only part of our "Let's talk about all the December holidays" discussion he remembered was that Jewish people don't celebrate Christmas. To him this translated to all people who don't like Christmas are Jewish. We had an interesting chat in the hallway.

Anyway, the point of my story is this: I went through my teenage period where I was annoyed that I had to pretend to believe in Santa because my baby brother is almost 12 years younger than I am. I rolled my eyes and was all, "ugh. How long am I going to have to put up with this?" I swear, in hindsight I don't know how my mother didn't either slap me or give me coal in my stocking.

Now that I've seen much more clearly how fast these kids are expected to grow up, it's clear to me that kids need Santa.

Oh -- and don't be this teacher.

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.