Day +12: Too much talking

I started feeling like my cold was coming back this afternoon. I forgot to take my medicine this morning. By lunchtime, I was feeling a bit rough. By 3, I could barely stand to talk. I'd been talking most of the day and had over an hour left to go.

I started downing cough drops, but they were limited in their effectiveness. By the time I got home, it was all I could do to swallow. I have been fighting to get over this cold for the past week and a half, but not having so much success. Talking for six hours today didn't make it any easier.

I came home and fell onto the couch. I know I did this last year. I don't think I was sick, but I know I was just as tired. Just out of curiosity, I went back and read some of the posts from the first week he was gone. It helped to see how sad I was, how tired I was without any relief in sight.

I may not feel 100%, but having my husband home, here to talk to, here to hold, here to share my day with, makes everything better. I still want to crawl into bed around 5 and take a nice long nap, but I'm hanging in there. It is certainly nice not doing it alone.

This might not be the most exciting entry, but for today, it is all I can manage. Any energy I have left needs to be spent with my husband, not just typing silently at the computer. 

Day 82: Summer's here

Today was our actual last day of school, but it was a short day and I finished all my work yesterday. I was able to bring Lil Bit with me and just socialize. I had so many people that wanted to visit with her. She was very cute and social the whole day, only getting a little crabby when we had to sit quietly for a meeting, luckily I had her binky and everyone was clapping for the teachers celebrating 5, 10, 15, 20 years of service. She loved clapping for everyone.

We kind of started summer last night with going for a long "baby" walk pushing her princess car up and down the block with the dog and playing carefree all over the house. The best part of the past two weeks, was getting to sleep all night through.

I started putting her in her crib drowsy, but not asleep. I had been letting her play until she got crabby and then would hold her until she fell asleep. I knew it wasn't a good precedent, but I just couldn't help myself. She would just touch my face until she drifted off. It was too sweet to miss, but then she would wake in the middle of the night and be upset to wake up alone.

I hadn't slept through the night in MONTHS. I had to make a change. I didn't actually know that was the problem until she stopped waking up. It took a few nights of listening to her cry for a few minutes before falling asleep, but last night and tonight, she dropped off the second I put her down. And has slept through the night since I started putting her to bed awake.

I know my summers of sleeping in until 9 are over, but hopefully I will able to get to sleep until 7 or 8 most days, get up and go for a run/walk, and spend the rest of the day playing, splashing in the pool, and learning about my oh so precious little girl. I can't wait to take her for her first ice cream and our first trip to the park.

I felt a weight drop from my shoulders Wednesday night just knowing how close the end of the year was, and summer just cruised into the house. I love teaching, but I can't wait for this summer of joy. Although I know it will be over way too fast, I am going to soak up each second and make it feel like twenty weeks instead of only ten as best I can. This is my last summer in my 30's. I wanna make it SO MUCH fun, even if my idea of fun is tickling my daughter until neither of us can breathe. 

Day 168: Waiting for Superman

Today my students began watching the propaganda documentary "Waiting for 'Superman'". If you haven't seen it, the primary focus is on the broken public education system in America. When the highest percentage of reading proficiency in the country is 36% of students in ONE state are proficient in reading by the 8th grade, the system IS broken.

The documentarian is coming down hard on it being the fault of poor teachers. It is making me feel very pressured to be a better teacher, make sure I am addressing a minimum of 100% of the recommended curriculum. Apparently, one poor teacher can pull a student down an entire grade level in that subject. A poor elementary school teacher can hold a student back a grade level in every subject, which is a deficit from which few recover. If a child gets unlucky enough to have two poor teachers, his/her future can be permanently affected. We all know that one bad teacher affects an entire year of learning, which then affects the next year and the subsequently the next, but how many of us realize that this is leading 44-88% of high school students to enter 1-3 or more grade levels behind in reading and math.

Even though I understand the situation is much more complex than the film truly depicts, with a plethora of so many variables that even the best intentioned cannot find a workable solution, I have to be honest and admit that when my daughter is school age, I will be considering private school if it is a financial option for us.

In a perfect world, every student would have equal opportunity to learn according to his/her ability, but since teachers are people and people are imperfect, that does not seem to be realistic view. Some teachers work better with the upper echelon of students, some with the lower and some with the middle group. Some teachers are more patient and others more strict. What works in one room with one group of students might not work with a similar group down the hall. The system cannot be perfect with so many people being involved in it from students, parents, teachers, administrators, to local, state and federal politicians. However, I think the system could be better.

Is money the answer? In some ways, yes it is. Give me fewer students and more time to prepare and critique and grade. But giving each teacher fewer students and more time, costs money. Pay teachers what they are really worth. While higher pay will attract more people in general to the profession, more skilled and quality people who would love to teach might be willing to enter the profession if they could feasibly support a family on the income. Give teachers and schools the tools to make learning accessible and fun.

The next issue regarding teachers that the video addresses is TENURE. Tenure keeps many ignorant, lazy and generally ineffective teachers employed as do many teaching contracts in non-union states. However, no protections for teachers would lead to a lot of great teachers being lost to the profession as well. Teachers are in such a difficult position that they need some job security. It should be hard to get fired because parents and students can misinterpret or misrepresent situations. Assessing teacher success is also hard because the measurement of success is not an objective measure. How well students do on a test only would work if we could guarantee each student made an effort on the test and would not purposely fail to place a teacher's job in jeopardy. Passing versus failing percentages of students wouldn't work because everyone could just arbitrarily decide to pass students in order to be seen as more successful. In my school, teachers give students passing grades if they get close. I choose not to do so without extenuating circumstances. A student who earns a 69, just under the 70% passing rate, but did not attend tutoring or do all of his/her assignments, who made little effort to do even the minimum doesn't get a passing grade. At the same time a student with a 67-68 who came in for extra help, did every homework assignment, did extra credit work when offered, behaved and was on task in class daily might earn the passing grade. Grades are so subjective that looking at them from outside isn't really a fair assessment of a teacher's skill or necessarily of a student's learning.

The system is so huge and so convoluted that even brilliant, motivated, wonderful people haven't been able to fix it in its current manifestation. Don't even get me started on NCLB . . . NCLB Flaws is an article I found that addresses some of my concerns over the current educational system. A discussion for another day, perhaps.

We can't fix a broken system without being willing to shake things up, being willing to stop doing things the way they've always been done and start from the bottom correcting and changing things. I have answers, but no power and many better informed, educated and skilled than I have found themselves in the same place. All ideas and answers with no tools or ability or allowances to implement them. Perhaps the biggest hurdle to fixing it, isn't that we are waiting for Superman to come save us, but we should be waiting for the trash man to scrap the whole thing and start over.

Day 321: Fumes AGAIN

Last night, I ran and ran desperately trying to get my "have to's" done early enough to relax and enjoy the baby and evening. Lil Bit wet the bed yesterday morning so first thing was get a load of laundry going, then pull out my new video camera and get it charging. So glad I did. Lil Bit was jumping in her Jumperoo for the first time! She is still just shy of tall enough, but she found if she scoots onto one cheek, she can reach with one foot and off she went. She was bouncing and bouncing. It was so much fun to watch her having fun.

Trying to put clean sheets on her mattress is a major undertaking. Either I have to remove her crib bumper or maneuver around it. Taking it off the crib means painstakingly reattaching it. Of course the tiny ties are not spaced so that they fall on a rail regularly and are difficult to tie neatly. So much fun!! If I try to work around the bumper, it is almost just as much work to try to get the snug mattress out of the crib and back in. I need a shoe horn to slide the mattress into the crib without the bumper. 

I had laundry to fold, some sewing repairs to do on the outfit I am wearing today, so kinda had to be done and the regular evening chores. Didn't crawl into bed until 11 despite being in my pjs around 9. And I don't know why, but she has been waking up early every day for two weeks. Fall asleep past 11 because I am all hyped up and am woken by whining around 4:30. I am sure I will survive, but man it takes a toll. What did Murtaugh say in "Lethal Weapon" - "I am too old for this . . ."

It just adds up and by Thursday, I am a wreck. I want to visit with my stepsons soon, but don't know how I will have the energy to drive seven hours on Friday and Sunday to pick them up and drop them off. I would almost stay in a hotel, but then I have to have something to do with the dog. 

I know it all fades in comparison to what my dear husband is going through. He is faced with a million discomforts and seemingly insurmountable challenges daily. I can't even imagine. He struggles with superiors with whom he may not always agree or feel appreciated by and subordinates who may not always follow orders or appreciate how hard he works for them. In some ways I do understand the latter. I spend all day with students and sometimes wonder if any of them really hear me or understand why I teach. If I didn't care, I could just sit here and do crazy things with them and my life would be easier.

But no, I design lessons that tie skills into previous knowledge and try to make authentic assessments. I try to give students inspiration to achieve their goals and overcome obstacles. And then I come across a child, who has given up, who sees no point in caring about him/herself. It breaks my heart. 

I feel like I am trying to be Super Teacher/Wife/Mother/step-mother/friend/WOMAN and just can't. But what do I put down? What ball do I let drop? To whom do I say, sorry, you lose? I can't do it all, but also can't make myself tell someone, I just can't find time for you. My step-sons - love them and miss them so much, but how do I take 14 hours away from the house, dog, baby, self to drive to get them? I guess this is being a grown up. 

We all look forward to the freedom adulthood promises, and find the responsibilities are more daunting than we always anticipated, but by then it is too late; we have gone and grown up.

I have papers and papers I am not grading. I have to pick up that ball before I get fired, so better go. My PE juggling class in high school should have been more realistic. No one has ever shoved three bean bags in my face and asked me to keep them in the air, but what I do everyday certainly feels more like juggling than any other time in my life.

Day 342

Her red pen poised over the sloppy pencil scratched essay, she could feel the energy draining from her body. She was reading, reading and then . . . she was standing on a cobblestone street with brick paved sidewalks talking to one of her most obnoxious students about his deplorable behavior in her class.

As his parents began to berate her, she felt the ground sliding out from under her and jolted herself awake. The exhausted, temporarily single mother/teacher, realized she had just fallen asleep at her desk. Her eyes perilously close to the sharp end of her pen. She shook herself awake and tried to continue grading.

Her heavy head slumped slowly down onto her waiting forearms. And she found herself asleep again.

This was my afternoon - I barely felt capable of getting home or taking care of Lil Bit. When we got home, she wasn't in the mood for a nap like usual. I was so wiped out I cried. So for tonight, that's all folks!!