Rest, Recover, & Repeat

The weekend has arrived and for some reason I feel like I still need to go to work tomorrow. Whew! Thank goodness that's not true. If I have to hear my name spoken one more time, I just might scream! When you have 70 students throughout the day and allow them the freedom to choose between a few options during each of the 3 periods, you end up getting your name repeated MANY times!

Some students don't realize that you don't need to be beckoned twenty times before you actually hear them! You heard them the first time and hoped that they would recognize that you were speaking to someone else. But the best tactic is really to interrupt the current student with whom you are speaking to tell the beckoner to wait their turn. Only to stop and repeat this process again with beckoner #2. I feel like I am washing dishes sometimes. Wash, rinse, repeat. Scrub. Scrub. Wash, rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat!!!

So, I will bask in the fact that I do not need to be called by my title and last name over the next 58 hours. I will sleep and give my brain a rest. I will prep for next week when my wits can handle it. And the SOLs (Virginia's Standards of Learning Assessments) will come and pass next week without any stress or strife. One can hope, right?!?

But by Monday I will be ready to fill the needs, calm the tensions, and facilitate learning, review, and activities. I will be ready to be what my students need of me because that's a gift that I have to give each of them.

And that's what keeps me coming back. That's what keeps all of us teachers coming back. We get to see learning unfold and have difficult, sometimes life-changing, discussions. We get to develop relationships that impact the life of a child. We get to decorate our walls with pictures, poems, and drawings of many students/children who took the time to let us know we are making a difference. Because they really do care, no matter their age. We get to observe and foster growth over the course of a whole year of someone's life.

Sometimes it's frustrating and it's easy to want to leave on the closest jet plane, but we get to witness incredible moments each day and we wouldn't miss them for the world.



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