Someone to Love Them

After missing the last 7 school days due to a terrible ice storm that left back roads frozen and inaccessible, we are finally going back to school tomorrow. I never thought I would say this, but I'm ready to go back! The unexpected time at home has allowed me to spend time with my daughter, clean the house, write, go shopping, and do several other activities that I normally don't have time for. On the other hand, it has once again taught me that I am not cut out to be a stay at home mother, and given me an increasing respect for those who are. Yesterday two of my daughter's friends came to hang out for a while, and by the time they left a few hours later, the house that I had just cleaned suddenly looked like a tornado had passed through. Although I had time to put everything back in order, I lacked the energy, and the desire. Not wanting to be cooped up in the house any longer, I urgently told my daughter, "Put your coat on! We're going to Wal-Mart!" It wasn't just the fact that I was irritated by the mess that I wanted to get away; it was that I missed my routine, my busy lifestyle, and yes, I even missed my students. The same students who drove me to a higher level of annoyance than the two girls who wrecked my living room, day after day after day. The same students who talked when they were supposed to be silent and were silent when they were supposed to talk. The same students who could instantly ruin a well-crafted lesson with the smell of a fart or the sight of an insect. So, why did I miss those hooligans? Why did I miss the same silly behaviors that made me more anxious for the next break than for my weekly dessert? For the same reason that I miss my daughter anytime I am away from her. Because deep down, there's a part of me that loves each of my students as one of my own--even the ones who constantly interrupt, laugh, bully, curse, cheat, or anything else to irritate me. Parents understand that we don't get to choose the qualities our children are born with, but we love them all the same. It doesn't matter if they're a straight A student, a standout athlete, a talented musician or a nobody; the only thing that matters is that they're ours, and we've been honored with the great responsibility of teaching and raising them. Normally those students who annoy me most don't possess any hidden talents, either; they're simply crying out for attention in the only way they know how. All they really want is someone to listen to their quirky questions, laugh at their obnoxious jokes, correct their pesky behaviors; all they really need is someone to love them. Sometimes it just takes me being away from them for a few days to remember how much.

The Ride Home

My music-listening, cell-phone texting, social butterfly of a student surprised me today by asking me to give her a ride. My initial thought was, “No!” Not on Friday afternoon before a three-day weekend, when the sun is shining bright and I was already dreaming of my feet running for the first time in two weeks; not to mention that I had a daughter to pick up, groceries to buy, and clothes to wash. Yet she had the courage to make this request as if I had all the time in the world. But instead of saying no, I found myself instantly saying yes—and instantly regretted it. First, she showed up 15 minutes later than the time I told her we would leave. Next, she had me take her to a post office so that she could pick up her new shoes that she was eagerly waiting to try on; and even asked me to get out of the car and wait in line with her. Then, I found out that she also intended for me to take her home—another twenty minute drive in the opposite direction. A new tank full of gas and several traffic jams later, I finally arrived at the babysitter’s house to pick up my daughter, tired, hungry, and desperately needing a bathroom. But somewhere in the middle of the conversation about the shoes she bought for $80 from Vancouver, Canada that was her first new pair of shoes in more than a year, I realized that I was the one being selfish—not her. An integral part of my Christian responsibility is to let others see Christ living in me in at all times—even when someone asks me to do something that I really don’t want to do. As we drove, she started telling me about how her parents constantly argue, never provide enough food for her, and try to control everything she does. They don’t even let her talk to any of her friends from school for fear that she might turn on them. I imagine that once she gets home in the afternoon, she has very little human interaction until she arrives at school the next day. More than anything, I patiently listened and just let her talk. Great teaching is just as much what happens outside of the classroom as what happens during class time. It’s about so much more than being just a teacher; it’s about being a listener, a caregiver, and sometimes even a mother. It’s about teaching the students valuable life lessons that they can never learn from sitting in the classroom—like how, exactly, to retrieve a package from the post office and sign for it (she really did not know!) Those are the kind of acts that the students will remember more than any classroom lesson. So, I can only hope that one day, several years from now, this student will remember me not as the one who helped her pass a test, but as the one who showed her love and compassion on a day that maybe no one else would have. If she does, then my one day of forfeiting my run and arriving at the house an hour and a half later than anticipated with no groceries and no time to make supper is one small sacrifice that is worth so much more than a typical Friday afternoon.

Music to My Ears

Music to my Ears A few weeks ago, when I picked up my 3-year-old daughter Susana from the babysitter, she did not run up to give me a hug and kiss and declare how much she missed me; instead, she ran the other direction when she saw me coming, then went to hide under a small table where she knew I couldn’t reach her. When I did finally grab her a few minutes later, she was kicking, screaming, hitting, and anything else to show how unhappy she was about leaving her friends and their many exciting toys. It didn’t stop there; once we got in the car, she continued to scream so loudly that even the radio couldn’t tune her out, and even yelled at me to stop the car a few times. By the time we got home, ten minutes later that felt more like thirty minutes, I was crying and couldn’t even look at her without becoming more upset. Blame it on my hormones, blame it on my students, or blame it on the fact that I am a woman and allow my emotions to overrun me sometimes, but whatever the case, I reached a point when I simply did not know what else to do. I had tried every kind of discipline I’d read about and even a few of my own, yet none of them could take away the screaming in my ears—or worse, the pain inside my heart. The next day, I took my third and fourth grade students to the computer lab for a research project. Big mistake. Half of the computers didn’t work, three-fourths of my students didn’t know how to log on to the internet by themselves, and all of them needed me to help them with something in just that moment. Once again I felt the excruciating ringing in my ears (this time in the form of “Mrs. Jimenez! I need help! Mrs. Jimenez! What do I do?”) and the increasing feeling that if the noise didn’t stop soon, I might have to implode. But teaching, like parenting, means loving your students even when they are yelling in your ears. Somehow I finally managed to get around to all of my needy students, help them log on, and get them started on their assignment—all without imploding. In return, they were able to work independently (well, almost), doing something that they loved. For once none of them asked to go to the bathroom, and by the time class ended they couldn’t believe it was time to go already. When we did leave, several of them asked me when we were going to come back and do it again. In order to make music, you have to make noise. You also have to practice, practice, practice, relying on others to help you learn. At the beginning of the class my students made a lot of noise, distracting me, distracting others, but it was necessary for the beautiful melodies they created at the end of the class in the form of their finished research projects. If I had given in to the noise and taken them back to the classroom to do “boring work” like I had threatened, I would have never heard the final sounds. More importantly, my students would have never learned the valuable lesson of sticking with it when something is new, different, or seemingly difficult. Susana’s music that started as screams ended as joyful laughs. A few minutes after we got home, I was sitting on the couch, tired of the crying and screaming and anger. Susana finally noticed how upset I was and came to sit with me. She started tugging at my eyelashes, making me laugh. Before I knew it we were both laughing hysterically, and the meltdown from the previous twenty minutes was soon forgotten. As a mother, I must be firm and discipline my child even when she is doing everything in her power to make me give in. I must also show her love and attention, rejoice when she rejoices, cry when she cries. I must show her through my example that I don’t let temporary moments of insanity change my resolve. As a teacher, I must also be there for my students when they are acting unmotivated, uncooperative, or unreasonable. I must be patient with them when they feel like giving up and teach them how to endure difficult situations. If I do, the end product will always be music to my ears.

Friday, AKA Assessment Day

Friday, aka Assessment Day We made it! It’s Friday, it’s finally Friday! So why do we feel drained instead of energized? If you are like me, you count your days until the weekend, daydreaming of dwaddling in the park, sipping milkshades in the shade, and reading books that have nothing to do with teaching. Then when Friday afternoon finally gets here, we go home…and crash. No energy left to even think about a relaxing soak in the tub, much less a fun night on the town. Today was a typical Friday for me; in other words, hectic, but without a lot of direct instruction. For many of us teachers, Fridays are the days that we assess students for everything learned during the week, and today was no exception. I ran around like a chicken with its head cut off printing and making copies before class. I tried to sound angry and threatening as I warned my students “today is the last day!” to get the work done that they’ve been putting off all week (even though secretly I know I’m not allowed to take off points for late or unfinished work because of the new grading policy). I walked from desk to desk, trying to keep each student on task as each and every one worked on a different assignment. I answered question after question, spelled word after word. I made on-the-spot accommodations for my lower level students and tried to provide effective feedback for my higher level students. I monitored my entire classroom as one-fourth took a test, one-fourth “read” books on the carpet, one-fourth STILL was trying to get their work done, and the last fourth was doing who knows what. I listened intently to my students taking a reading assessment while at the same time scanning the room for potential chaos. I tried to score the reading test objectively and effectively, even though in the background I could hear the student all the way across the room louder than the one who was sitting right in front of me struggling to read the words that were way over his head anyway. I resisted my inside urge to yell “stop the craziness!” and calmly rang my warning bell instead (they were on task and following directions, after all). I finally managed to ignore all the noise and focus only on this one student, only to discover minutes later that another boy had thrown up all over his desk (and test paper) while I was shooing away anyone who tried to interrupt me YET again. I stayed after my students were gone to clean up the disgusting throw up mess, not wanting to get the custodian on my bad side. I ate most of my lunch in the car because my class ended late and I was cleaning up the throw up when it should have been my actual lunch time. And now, when I finally have a chance to do some planning, I take out my laptop and write about my day; which means that tomorrow, I will be scrambling to get my lesson plans done, and Sunday, I will be scrambling to get my grades done. So…why am I so excited that today is Friday? Why do I feel like this day is really any different from any other day? For starters, the boy who gave me lip and attitude at the beginning of class was smiling and talking jokingly by the end. The boy who was at the point of tears because he “didn’t know where to start” came up and gave me a big hug out of the blue. The boy who threw up will (hopefully) remember that I listened patiently when he told me three times that “I’m not sick, I just ate a cookie for snack time that had too much sugar in it.” I’m excited because when I finally get around to grading those papers on Sunday (or the next Sunday), I will see that most of my students do not earn low grades because I took the time to push them through the assignment even when it killed us, and that most of them will pass the test because we took the time to carefully review. And hopefully, by the end of the year, I will see the scores on those cursed reading tests go up…because I was able to block everything out of my mind and let the students act a little crazy for 20 minutes of my day. Fellow teachers, I hope your Friday was as memorable as mine was. Teach on.

Miniscule and Worthless

Miniscule and Worthless A girl killed herself Today Because of bullying. She was only 13. A few hours later, I watched two boys With a strong build Get taken away— Handcuffed. They were also 13. They were selling drugs On the school bus To some younger students— All of them children. Children. Not even old enough to drive. 13. 13 years for their mothers To protect them, Provide for them, And punish them. 13 years for their Teachers to instruct them about Figurative language, ancient civilizations, ratios, and plant cells. And all for what? Because in one moment, 13 years of coddling, pleading, and guiding, Turned into a 13 second mistake When they made a single decision— Alone— Their parents and teachers not there to shout “NO!”— That will forever change their lives; Maybe even haunt them. What will their mothers do now, after those 13 years of parenting wash away in their endless tears? As a teacher, I teach my students How to add, How to read, How to write, How to conduct experiments, And a number of other so called skills that will one day make them successful. But if I don’t teach them how to live their lives: Overcome challenges, Stand up for themselves, Ask for help when they are truly struggling— Then all of the other miniscule facts That I’ve taught them Are just that— Miniscule. Miniscule…and worthless.