Planning, Procrastinating, Being Brave and Reaping Rewards

Where I'd really like to be right now is ankle-deep in eggnog, adorning myself (or an evergreen) from head to toe in tinsel.

Instead, I'm here on the couch, wrestling with my required Weekly Plan.

One of the hard parts of teaching is that it follows you home.  Two weekends before Christmas, I wonder what the rest of the populace has on their minds on a Sunday evening. Probably colored lights, cookies, carols, and candles;  wreaths, wrapping paper, festively curled ribbons. Suitcase strategies, stocking stuffers. Model menus. Miracles. Antlers, angels, snowflakes, Santa.

Those things are are also on my mind (how could they not be, after a six-week course in Classic Christmas Movies, designed by Nicole when she found my Christmas movie education woefully lacking...) But at the moment, these seasonal concerns exist behind a veil of work-related concerns... Which Read Aloud book should I do first? How many kids will be absent the day before Christmas?  What should I do about the kids who still don't know their times tables? When are those people coming in for the peer observation? When can I talk to the ESL teacher about the new unit? How long will it take me to finish writing this IEP? What recommendations should I make at the parent meeting on Thursday? Are my math centers working? How should I change them? Where can I find lower level Guided Reading Books? How long is the Christmas concert going to last? Is there even the remotest possibility of actually finishing the whole math curriculum by the end of the year?

Planning my schedule every week feels like spinning a delicate spider web. Which is maybe why I get so irritated when my intricate planning is up-ended by unannounced changes. And also maybe why I procrastinate so much before doing the plans...

Lesson planning isn't the only thing that follows you home and haunts you on Sunday evenings. Worries, preoccupations, vague unsettledness, wishes and plans and hopes and dreams for and about the kids... these also stay with you, like it or not. Even after eight years in the biz, even after a lot of practice separating my work emotions from my personal emotional life, the clouds still creep in. Imagined voices of the kids and their parents whisper into your ears at night, always more critical than they would be in real life. Even after trying my hardest to do things right, even knowing, more or less, what to do and how to do it, there are still doubts and disappointments, little pinpricks of guilt. How did I let 6 kids fail the fractions test? How did I not realize that one student's entire writing piece was a re-telling of a movie he saw on Netflix? When did my to-do list get so long? How did my stack of grading get so tall? Why did that student's reading score go DOWN on the last test... it can't be that he's un-learning how to read...

Sometimes I get jealous of other jobs. Jobs you don't have to think about on the weekends. Jobs that start at flexible times. Jobs that start in the double-digits of the morning. Jobs that leave you with energy at the end of the day for cleaning house or doing laundry or buying groceries or answering emails. Jobs where you get more than twenty minutes to eat your lunch. Jobs where you don't get so busy you forget to eat lunch (and then wonder why everything feels so desperate and difficult.) Where you can "phone it in" every once in a while.

But of course, those types of jobs where you click-clack on your keyboard all day long also don't provide the same kinds of rewards. Like fierce, undying loyalty from the students - voiced in protests of outrage when I mentioned that I would be returning home to the states, even though logical reasoning would presume it obvious that they will have moved on from my class by then. My reward is hearing kids (more than one!) telling me that they never really liked reading until this year.  My reward is when the kids get as excited as I am about looking at maps of migration and colonization. When a kid notices and names a metaphor in a book. When they go, "Oh! Decimals are easy now!" My reward is when kids tell me that they like my class because I make learning fun, and knowing that they are telling the truth.

My job is rewarding, when you learn how to recognize and appreciate the rewards.  But that doesn't mean it is easy. I imagine it is much like being a parent.

Another hard part of teaching is putting on the impenetrable mask. Every morning on the walk from the bus or the subway or the parking lot in towards your classroom, you have to squeeze into it. Some days it fits just fine. Somedays it feels like it was made for you. Fun? Entertaining? Yet serious about learning? Wise? Well-informed? Quick-witted? Thoughtful? Dependable? Resourceful? Punctual? Prepared? Why yes, yes that's me to a T! That's teacher-me!

But other days it's hard to fit your real contours into the mask's semi-artificial shape... Tired? Ill? Homesick? Slightly hungover? Trepidatious? Blind with rage? Inundated with apathy? Doesn't matter. You mold to the mask; it doesn't mold to you.  Whatever you have going on on the inside, the outside has to be more or less consistent.

Every day, you must become calm, patient, and just. Even when you are actually feel frazzled and flustered and frustrated, irritable, irreverent, irrational. Every day you must be ready for anything, even when you feel prepared for nothing. Every day. You must be firm, even when it feels like a light wind might knock you to your knees. You must be steady on the outside even if you're trembling on the inside. Never reveal your anguish.  Not even when your intestines are tied in knots from something questionable you ate, and you think they might imminently betray you.

You must stand in front of others even on those days when you want to hide inside your shell. You must be prepared to give orders, but in a way that makes kids want to follow them. You must be prepared also to follow orders, even if they are contrary to common sense. You must act like the better versions of yourself.  All the time. Every day. Even when you don't feel like it. Even when you feel like one of the worst, most vulnerable, most whining, wheedling, weakling versions of yourself. You must motivate your kids, even when your own sense of purpose is obscured.

You must be present, even if your mind is really in the mountains.  You must be reassuring, even if anxiety is tugging at your tail. You must smile when they greet you, no matter if it's real or forced. You must act like you have an answer for everything, whether or not you're making it up as you go along. You must be brave when you are tired, when things don't go as planned, when facing the day feels like too much to ask. You must be like that duck, steady on the surface, but paddling furiously underneath. You must love all the kids, even those who are hardest to love. You must learn to love them more.

And, no matter what, even if you can think of innumerable more ways to procrastinate, and thousands more words to express what you feel, you must get your weekly plan done by the morning.

You might be wondering where I've been. The answer is, all over the place!

I've been hiking up the tallest mountain in Ecuador to see how the last ice merchant of Chimborazo harvests glacial ice; I've been bathing in volcanically heated hot springs in Banos and Papallacta; battling jungle insects and bodysurfing at the beach; birdwatching in Mindo; drinking fancy coffee in the Old Town and taking a biking around Bogota, Colombia. And meanwhile, trying to keep up with my responsibilities at school.

Alancito was here visiting me for over a month.  This had the effect of simultaneously enriching my knowledge and experience of Ecuadorian culture, opening my eyes to the fabulously diverse natural beauty that Ecuador has to offer, and also running me ragged.

But Alancito left last night, so now it's just me and my computer again. It's hard to know where to begin... PYP reports to write? Shows to watch? Groceries to buy? More likely than not, early bedtime will win out.

Good night!