Entering year ten (over a year ago), I promised I was going to be a better manager of my time spent in the classroom after hours, on projects at home, and late nights dedicated to finishing all the stuff that one cannot get done while they are busy teaching and tending to the children. I failed, miserably.
I had an entire summer to think about time management and the implications of it in the classroom. I am a classic type A. It is continually a battle of the wills living by to do lists and managing the various expectations that education places on a classroom teacher. In any other work force, the pile you leave on your desk on a given day greets you the next morning where you have a generous amount of time to take care of those tasks. In education, the pile multiples and there is no time to deal with it (within your contract time) because you are teaching, assessing, working with children, cleaning up diarrhea, tying a shoe, helping Sally and Johnny solve their problems, and everything in between. In addition, education has as much paperwork as any given work force that gets to work on it during the day for a reasonable rate of pay.
Education is like a vacuum that sucks up every last bit of your time in the trajectory path. I am working on winning what feels as though is a losing battle. At the end of the day, I have decided to just focus on my little learners and make the lists, paperwork, and other stuff wait.
It took us 38 days to publish our hopes and dreams...
Better late than never, right? Here's the deal, I have decided to have grace for myself. My littles are safe daily, we get a tremendous amount of things done in a given day, and they are learning. So, it's forgivable that it took 38 school days to hang up their hopes and dreams. In the mean time, we were having conversations about what we wanted to learn and the boundaries we need to make the learning happen. We might have even read a few books to help them understand the importance of having goals. I read I Wish You More and shared how we were going to publish their wishes for our year.
As an educator, one is always thinking of the objectives of a given lesson but with the continuous attack on education, I keep thinking do the benefits of this profession outweigh the negativity. It is really hard not to take the judgement and criticism personally. I wish I had the answers for how to fight for what is right and best for all children, amid the scrutiny, testing, and endless decisions that are out of my control.
The million dollar question is why does a girl with two advanced degrees keep coming back for more?
Today on the way outside of the building to recess, a little one spots a dandelion and completely ignores the discussion of our zero level to shriek loudly, proceed to get out of line to pick it, and run to the front of our line to hand it to me. As the children scattered to play, the same little one could be spotted running around and clasping her hands together. I said, "what are you doing?" to which she replied, "chasing and catching our wishes."
For that moment, there was the answer to the million dollar question. The answer is different daily despite the paperwork, meetings, or ridiculous expectations. I just wish for more.
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