Best and Worst Year Ever

It was the best of school years.  It was the worst of school years.

- Not so much Charles Dickens

If you have read this blog at all during this school year, you know that my school has weathered a lot.  We began the year with a student in intensive care, lost several teachers to family emergencies, and lost a dear middle school student, among many other things.  In many ways, this year could not have been worse.  As we cross the finish line this year, we are exhausted.  

But God knows you need some things to be going well, so in some ways, it has been the best year I've had in a long time.  My classes were more fun to teach this year than they have been in a while.  In particular, my first-period and second-period physics classes came with an energy and enthusiasm that I haven't seen in a while, which is a great way to start the day.  My eighth-grade classes this year were filled with delightful young men and women who were a joy to teach and shared their appreciation for all of their teachers generously (as did their wonderful parents).  I could not have asked for the experience of teaching in my classroom this year to be more wonderful.

I also grew professionally this year in many great ways.  I was able to attend the Learning and the Brain Conference in November, and because of it, find many new resources for professional learning.  I took the notes from one of the seminars I attended there and presented to our faculty, and I will get to do that with another seminar in August.  I had the blessing of speaking at our annual Celebrate GRACE fundraising dinner, representing our staff on the subject of being "All In." 

Even the terrible things we have been through this year have yielded blessings.  The loving community of GRACE Christian School is never more evident than when a member of the family is in crisis.  This year, that community grew beyond the walls of the school.  We received outpourings of love from other Christian schools and churches; even the local Chic-Fil-A sent flowers.  Those faculty members that had to leave mid-year haven't left the family.  They have come to visit and shared graduation with their students.  I have some of the best colleagues in the world, and we have spent much time laughing together, crying together, and writing notes of support to one another.  The stresses of the year have brought us closer.

Thankfully, I have been teaching long enough to know that bad years happen, but they don't mean bad careers.

Not the Day I Thought I Would Have

"Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit' yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.'”

 - James 4:13-15

As teachers, we make a lot of plans.  This is a good thing.  Teachers who go into the classroom every day and wing it do a disservice to their students.  We must plan the day, the week, the quarter, and the semester (while still remaining flexible), or we will never teach our students as well as we could.  As a yearbook teacher, I have to plan photography schedules (from classes to athletics to artistic events), and I must teach students to plan for the meeting of deadlines.

There is perhaps no day of my year that is more planned out than the day we distribute the yearbook.  This was how it was supposed to go this year:

- The weekend before, the yearbooks are sorted into grades and labeled with student names.  

- The day of distribution, I have a substitute.  I arrive at school 6AM to get everything I will need for the day out of my classroom before the students start arriving at 7:45.  

- We distribute our books from several locations to ease traffic congestion, so I move boxes on a hand truck to different rooms.  At least one of those rooms also has AP exams going on in the morning, so I try to get as much done in there as I can before they get started and then work as quietly as I can afterward.  

- My school has two campuses, so when I have finished setting up in one place, I drive boxes of elementary students' books to our other campus, unload them, and deliver them to classrooms for the teachers to distribute as it works into their day.  

- I then go back up to my campus to prepare for our distribution event, a pep rally celebrating the Fine Arts programs of our school.  

- The final part of the rally is the reveal of the dedication of yearbook.

- The remainder of the day is yearbook signing time.

That's what was planned, but this day certainly didn't turn out the way I had planned.  The first few items went as planned, but when I got to the elementary campus, I was getting far more tired and weak than usual.  One of our maintenance crew helped me load the books into the lobby.  When I went to park the car, I felt a little sick.  I went to the bathroom and threw up.  You know how weak and shaky you are after that, so there was no way I was going to be able to deliver boxes to classrooms.  I went to the front desk and suggested a change of plan.  Our receptionists said, "You look terrible," gave me a bottle of water, and let me sit in the corner for a few minutes.

For some reason, all I wanted to was to get back up to my own campus.  I can't really explain that except that is the same feeling you get when you just want to be home.  Had it been any other day, I would have gone home at that point.  That's my only go-home rule:  You vomit; you leave.  But I really didn't want that to happen on this day.  There's a Walgreens next door to my campus, so I decided some caffeine might be helpful.  I bought a drink, and as soon as I got back in my car, it started again.  People of Walgreens, I apologize if I scared any potential customers away while leaning out of my car, vomiting in your parking lot.  I really couldn't help it.

Since I wasn't delivering boxes to classrooms, I had an extra 90 minutes or so to attempt recovery.  I wanted someone to know what was happening, so I went to our art teacher and told her I would be in my car and to come and check on me if she didn't see me by noon.  Then, I had an experience I've never had before - napping at work.  It took a while to figure out how to recline the driver's seat (why is that even a thing?) and get into a reasonably comfortable position.  I slept for about 45 minutes, woke up feeling like a human being again, looked in the mirror to see that I was a human color again (I had been the green of a Mt. Dew bottle before), and continued with the events of the day.  

I believe you should reflect and learn something when things don't go as planned, so here's what I learned.

1.  I may not be as necessary to the process as I previously thought.  All the yearbooks were distributed, despite my illness.

2.  Sometimes, you have ask for help.  I would have rather had no one know what was happening, but it simply wasn't possible.  People rallied and took over what I couldn't do.

3.  Even when you don't have the day you planned, things turn out okay.  Some even told me the next day that they thought it went better than ever.

Allowing the Urgent to Rule - This Week

A few years ago, I wrote on this blog about how you can avoid being ruled by the tyranny of the urgent.   By that, I mean living your life in a way that you are always chasing the next due date at the expense of things that are important but not time sensitive.  Today, I am writing about a time when I am allowing myself to let the urgent rule.  It's this week.

For those that don't already know, I am the yearbook advisor at my school as well as a regular classroom teacher.  That means May is packed enough to make a person go cuckoo for cocoa puffs.  The final chapters must be taught while exams are being written; awards nights are scheduled as are spring fine arts performances.  Textbooks must be collected and inventory must be done.  AP testing pulls students from my classroom.  Yearbooks go out less than two weeks before graduation (for which I make the slideshow).  And, oh yeah, someone decided both teacher appreciation week and Mother's Day should be during this time.  So . . . There's a lot going on.

For that reason, this is one of the periods during the year when I allow myself to be ruled by that which is due soonest.   My "to do" list gets divided into three sections - "Today, By the End of the Week, and Can Wait."  I will complete the "Today" section before I allow myself to look at the other two.  Then, I will tackle either whatever takes the least amount of time (like writing this blog post) or what I can do a small part of even though the whole takes a long time (like completing a few slides of the graduation slide show). 

This is not easy for a planner like me, and it might not be for you either.  I was having a conversation yesterday with someone who claims to live her life this way all the time.  That would make me crazy.  However, during these few weeks, I give myself permission to live this way, knowing that it will be over soon.  After exams are finished, I can go back to prioritizing the important over the urgent. 

Do You See What I (Don't) See?

Friday night, my school carried out one of its greatest traditions - our senior dinner.  One of the special things about working in a school with a graduating class of sixty is that we have the opportunity to make this event very personal.  Each student is talked about by a teacher, who has signed up to talk about them (sometimes having to fight for them with another teacher who also wants to) and shares stories about their character.  We know, love, and value our students' and their character, and this is a great night to showcase that.

There are many things that I love about this event, but there is one thing that strikes me every year.  The kid who pushes my buttons is someone else's favorite person.  Every year, I find myself listening to a speech and saying to myself, "I would never have thought that."  I find that students I have only known from the hallway (because I didn't get the opportunity to teach them) are different than I imagined.  I hear stories that make me think, "Wow, I wish I had gotten the chance to know her."  The stories we tell about our experiences with kids are inevitably revelations to other teachers

This night reminds me every year why every student needs a team of teachers, not just one.  If a student only had me, there would be some who would not be reached well.  The history teacher may see something that the English teacher doesn't.  The yearbook advisor or art teacher may have the opportunity to find a gift that doesn't show up in math.  The math and English teachers may have the chance to observe a student's perseverance in a way that others can't.  Each of us gets to see something the others might not. 

When we finish this night each year, we hope that each parent in the room knows that their child is loved and appreciated by at least one teacher.  We hope that each student in the room knows there is at least one teacher who knows them and sees who they are.  That's what we want for our students and parents.  What I hope for the teachers in the room is for us to see how much we are all needed.  You see what I cannot, and vice versa.