I Love You

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 this week I had two sobbing students and kids all needing my attention and yet no one was listening to me when I talked and so I walked out into the hall and said I can't do it anymore to whoever happened to be around to listen. Luckily, in that very moment, my angel behavior specialist who has recently started joining me for an hour and a half a day walked by and told me to take a break - she'd take over my room. My hero.

My kids have been off the wall, gone bananas, they're hanging from the rafters - you name it. At one point this week I looked up from my desk and saw one student coloring himself red with an Expo marker, another kid standing up in the corner trying to blend himself into a lamp. Get us out of here, I thought.

And then there was yesterday...

It was the last day I got to teach my math class, the kids I've seen an hour and a half a day for the past ten months. Right before class ended, I said, I love you guys. And I've had so much fun with you this year. And I'm going to miss you. They said nothing, which was a little anticlimactic and disappointing to be honest.

I walked toward the door and asked them to line up. Right then, Brigette walked over and came right up to my face and looked me in the eyes. What? I asked her. She walked right into me and gave me the biggest hug. 

And then there they all came - all these kids that I have spent hours and hours with teaching and pulling into small groups and doing math sprints and taking tests and going over tests and grading their little work with their cute little handwriting and sharing stories and laughter and asking them to be quiet again and again and AGAIN and this room is too small for those sounds and that ISN'T helping and playing the circle game for the hundredth time but somehow they're still so excited and then suddenly here I am, wrapped up in their little arms because this is it - just like that - suddenly it's over.

They kept coming. Kids I would not have expected a hug from surrounded me in their sweet little arms. Rylee didn't want to let go, the one I've learned needs time and space, who will do great work or nothing at all, who acts shy and distant but really just wants to be seen.

It becomes so overwhelming you don't know if it's worth it but then one thing happens - one kid gets it - one kid thanks you - one kid embraces you - and suddenly it's worth it all.

E is my recess buddy. He's always got some imaginary world going on. He talks a mile a minute - he'd talk to you all day if you'd let him (I mean truly). Sometimes, at recess, I just want to tune out, but almost every day he comes and finds me - tells me what's going on in his imaginary school that day, and assigns me my responsibility. 

All the teachers didn't show up today! You're the only one! And the kids need to go to math class, so YOU have to take them! Right now! And it's right over there! That's where they have to go!

We did review rotations this week, so I got to teach him for the first time since way back when he was in my intervention group at the beginning of the year. He sits in the very front row, marker and markerboard out, doing his very best to follow along. I'm doing SO good, he'll say. I may or may not have shown him favoritism all week and mainly worked with him during independent work, but I have no regrets.

Yesterday we were working on long division, which is pretty overwhelming for this sweet little guy. So I went and sat next to him to help him with the problem. I drew the box for him and wrote in the first couple numbers and he looked up at me, his little marker in his hand, and said I love you.

I love you. You're my second favorite teacher.

Oh my goodness! That's so sweet! Who's your first favorite teacher? (Looking back this was probably not the best question but you know, I wanted to know my competition.)

Mrs. Dean. But, you know what, I have two favorite teachers. You and Mrs. Dean. I just love you, that's all.

Today EJ's mom came with EJ so she could sign yearbooks and say goodbye. She threw our class a party - complete with drinks and cookies and goody bags. It was the last time I'd have my whole class together - all 26 of them - all of us running around and crammed all day in a teeny tiny room without a window. A room that's held so many tears and fights and so much laughter and growth. A room I've dreaded walking into sometimes, and on days like today, felt a bit sad leaving.

After EJ and her mom left, a paper fell out of one of the kid's goody bags.

Thanks for supporting me this year! EJ

A note for all my kids - all their tender hearts that have gently held EJ up on the days when it's all she can do to walk into the building, all she can do to come say hi before running to me to ask if I can call her mom so she can go home. 

Teaching isn't easy. It often isn't fun. It's exhausting and sometimes it feels like you are literally expected to do the impossible (because you are). It can leave you flat on your face, wondering how you're going to get it all done, wondering how you're going to make it to summer, wondering how you're going to grade the papers, wondering how you're going to say good-bye. I wouldn't want to do anything else.