Weekends Are Holding Me Together

It is a challenging year. Let's start with that. But lately my primary focus in life is getting to Friday. I still love my job and do not wake up feeling bad about going to work but by the end of the day I am definitely ready to go home. Each day has become another halting step toward the weekend. And when I wake up on Saturday morning I breathe it in as deeply as I can. I wallow in it. I enjoy every second of that 48 hours. By the time Monday morning rolls around again I have mentally prepared myself for the next week moving ever closer to Spring Break.

I am a reflector so I insist on knowing the why. I know that October and March are definitely my hardest months in teaching. In October I doubt that I will even get through the first quarter without banging my head against the wall. And March is just too long. It's the reason that I once had a Catholic school principal who insisted on leaving one of our days off until either St. Partrick's or St. Joseph's Day. But this is much more than the normal unending March. First there is the reading intervention class. Not much is getting better in that room. I do have control of the classroom but there is still all the game playing, messing with computers and general avoidance of anything that would make them better readers. It is just simply exhausting.

One of my groups of students is filled with some of most interesting students I've ever seen before. As you look around the room, you just know that more than half of them would benefit from some sort of counseling. And so would their parents. I know that part of my job is counseling and I don't mind doing a bit of it. But around about now, I would like to see some results. And, frankly, some of these kids don't act a bit differently today than they did way back when in August. It is still me following them around with lists of missing assignments and reminding them of what an a 50% F does to a C average. It's me making a big deal about homework. It's me going on and on about attention, focus, and following through. I'm just tired.

The other class is certainly entertaining but it has a few challenges too. Reminders about talking without permission are non-stop. More talk about attention, focus and follow through. A few groups are now learning how to listen to each other and accept a differing point of view without shouting over each other. So maybe there is progress being made.

This also is the importance of a weekend; to be able to look back and say, "Hey! Maybe something did happen this week. Maybe I did make a difference in one or two of them. And maybe I can do it again next week." And then one day I will wake up and it will be another Saturday. I'll be drinking my coffee and breathing in the weekend and suddenly it will occur to me that it is April 10th. I will shout for joy, "OH MY GOD, I'M ON SPRING BREAK!"