let every breath

As a teacher, is there anything harder than the last few weeks of school? The piles of papers to be graded are slowly growing higher as the deadlines draw closer and your resolve to get out of bed in the morning is steadily decreasing? Your desire to be on and energetic and captivating is steadily plummeting as the kids decide to up the ante in all things insane and do the very opposite of what is expected (and has been expected of them all year)? Doesn't it sound fun? This is when I'm the most checked out, and yet to get it all done, I need to be the most tuned in. These are the days where I need to get to work early, but every time I beat my students to the classroom in the mornings I feel like I won a war. These last couple weeks have been a struggle for me. I don't know how to better explain it than to say I feel like I've been running through water. It's like I have to push with everything in me just to keep moving, keep going, keep showing up. At one point thi...

 On Tuesday, one of my students ran away. She became upset and stormed out of the room. I went to check on her and she had her coat pulled up over her entire body, hugging her knees on the floor. When I asked her gently to come back inside, she refused. I told her that if she didn't come back in, I'd have to call so someone could come check on her. "I DON'T CARE!" she screamed back.  I stepped in my room to make the phone call. By the time the admin got there, which was two minutes max, she was gone.  This has happened before - students fleeing when they're upset, knowing someone will come after them. But every time it's happened with one of my kids, they've been hiding in the bathroom. Emma Jean wasn't in the bathroom.  I looked out and saw multiple administration in the hallway, concerned conversations passing between them. I kept sticking my head out the door in hopes for some information, but within a few minutes everyone in the hall was gone. ...

There's boxes in my guest room now. I pulled my car up behind the building today so I could load them into my car. They were in a corner of my classroom, gathering up from all the staff who have donated to my desperate email fund. I drove them home and lugged them up the hill to my apartment. And now they're in my guest room, where in just a couple weeks they'll be taped together and filled up with clothes and books and dishes - all the things I own.  I'm moving out to Fletcher, to a little studio basement apartment of a church member. It's a long story, but in a nutshell my apartment complex never game me my new lease information, meaning I'd have to sign a lease with an unknown rate for a year - something I do not have the financial ability to do (and who would?). I called the front office in the midst of it all and they told me it was possible I didn't have the information because corporate was planning to renovate my apartment, meaning I'd have to pa...

My sweet little Ally has severe scoliosis. Her mom pulled me aside the first day I met their family at Meet the Teacher. She asked to talk to me in private. Ally has severe scoliosis, a major curve in her spine. She is probably going to have to have a major surgery this year, and she is going to be in a brace and could miss multiple weeks of school. I requested that she has a female teacher, as I want her to feel comfortable. I could tell how concerned her mom was. Can you imagine? A nine year old girl whose spine is curving the wrong way. Knowing your daughter is going to undergoing a major procedure when she still believes in the toothfairy. I assured her mom that I would keep an eye on her daughter, that I'd support her in any way I can, and that I'd be very flexible and understanding with how much school she misses. Ally bounds around the room and the world with no hesitation. She’ll come up to me and update me about her hospital visits and possible surgery, with a look of ...

Last year I had 15 students and I didn’t realize that was pure bliss. I mean, to be fair, it was also my first year teaching and I was all but making up my own curriculum and one of my students was virtual so I had to be on Zoom all day (my goodness I don’t miss that), but nonetheless. 15 students. FIFTEEN STUDENTS!!! This year? 25. I have 25 cute little wild beings who I’m supposed to keep from killing each other and dry their tears and listen to their stories of what they did last night and what they ate this morning and help them understand why it’s not okay to say, Miss Seals can you please move my seat because I don’t like sitting next to him since he’s annoying and oh yeah - teach. I’ve heard somewhere that after, like, 22 kids - every additional kid is like adding 3 more. And now I get it. There’s this magic number, I’d say around 19, where there’s just the right amount of energy and voices in the room. And then, suddenly, it’s like a bomb went off and there’s bodies everywhere...

  Today was a doozy. I was telling my fellow teacher friend I had a bad day and he said, “Was it a doozy?” and I said, “Yes, in fact, it WAS a doozy.” And it wasn’t just a doozy. It was a MAJOR doozy. Like there were a few moments there I legitimately thought I was going to lose my mind and, quite possibly, my career. Would you like to know some of the reasons my day came straight from the land of the doozes? Well, for one, I am 99% sure it was the first time since the first week of school that I have actually had all 25 of my children. That would be reason enough to make today crazy. But lucky for you, that’s just the beginning. It was late start Wednesday, which basically means the kids show up an hour late and somehow forget to bring their brains and and any sense of self-control they may have (which is questionable, in some cases) with them. Every. Single. Time. There was a perimeter lockdown. I didn’t know why so I couldn’t tell my kids what it was. Of course, everyone’s...