Teaching

Teaching has got to be the most frustrating and rewarding things that I have ever done.  I love it and sometimes I hate it.  Sometimes I look around my classroom and wonder when I became and adult and responsible for so many little ones.  There is so much diversity in my little classroom.  Not only are my kids from several different countries – but also they all have such different approaches to absolutely everything.

I have one that struggles a little with school.  He has a difficult time focusing and schoolwork is a little difficult for him.  So what does he do?  He tries to be funny.  All the time.  I have to admit, he is really pretty hilarious sometimes.  However, he seems to think that distracting the teacher with his humor is going to get him out of his work.    

Then I have one that is very smart and does her work so well!  However, when things start to become a little difficult she hits a wall.  She just gives up.  She starts to cry and I am yet to find a way to help her learn to push past that frustration and figure out how to solve the problem. 

I have another one that is a lot smarter than she thinks she is.  She often looks at me like she does not have a clue what I am talking about and hands in assignments that it is near impossible to understand.  However, with a little affirmation and encouraging, she can and often does do so much better.  One the opposite end of that spectrum I have one that thinks he knows everything.  He does not listen when being given instructions because he thinks he already knows what to do.

Sometimes it is so confusing trying to stay on top of what is due for what class for each of my kids.  Did all my second graders turn in their phonics?  Did all of my 3^rd graders finish their learning logs?  Did I check them all?  5^th grade math.  6^th grade math.  English.  Science. I get so confused sometimes on all of the different assignments I have do for each of my different classes.  Am I making sure that these kids are turning in all their work and talking to each of them to find out where the missing work is for each class?  Then I have the kids who correct me the minute I say something that is wrong or who like to inform me if my handwriting on the board (which is always sloping downhill) is a little crooked.  These kids drive me nuts and it is so overwhelming sometimes!

However, then I get invited to “lunch” of leaf salad and sand biscuits with the second graders and I cannot help but smile.  Or one of my 5^th graders that has been struggling with math calls me over to help him with a math problem.  I come over to see that he has already circled all of the important information and underlined what he is trying to find (this is something that we have been working on all year).  He tells me that he knows how to do the math.  He just needs a little help figuring out exactly what the problem is asking.  I was so excited!  Instead of looking at the problem and immediately calling for help, he has tried to solve it.  He then has identified where he is getting stuck and tells me specifically where he needs help.  This is progress!

Last week, I gave one of the 6^th graders detention for hitting her brother.  She proceeds to cry through the remainder of recess.  I explained to her that it is O.K. to make mistakes, but we do still have to pay the consequences.  It is time to come in from recess and get started with class and she is still crying.  Now I tell her that she has a choice.  She can choose to sit there and cry about the fact that she made a mistake and miss out on math class then have to make up the work later or she can pull herself together and join the class.  She joined class!  I was so proud of her!  This is the same girl who a few months earlier cried through my entire math class about a misunderstanding between herself and one of the other 6^th graders.  There again I told her she had a choice.  That she could choose to believe that her friend did not mean to hurt her and move on or she could choose to be miserable. 

We really are making progress!  I have had tears of frustrations from little ones several times this year.  At first, it really bothered me.  However, I am learning that these tears are not such a bad thing.  These kids need to be pushed.  There is also a lot of laughter in my classroom.  There are high fives and victory dances.  Earlier this week the 5^th and 6^th graders and I took five minutes out of our Social Studies class to gather around a giant spider on the floor in my classroom and check him out.  (I should not write about stuff like that though.  My boss reads this and she might just start looking for another teacher!) 

Last week, there was one crazy day for me.  It was just before and during recess and I had one kid after another coming to me with problems.  The 7^th and 8^th graders were in the downstairs classroom with a teacher that fills in for a few minutes before recess.  I had two of the girls come up and talk to me in that time.  One was needing help with something and another was not feeling good.  Then during recess I had an 8^th grader wanting a little help with some homework and another wanting to talk to me about how worried she was about her recent test.  Then I had a second grader come to me in tears about some bullying going on on the playground.  Then I had a 5^th grader bringing me another issue.  All this in the span of less than twenty minutes.  I was bouncing from one thing to another and feeling a little bombarded.  There were two other teachers around.  Why were all these issues being brought to me?  Then I started thinking it’s not really an inconvenience that these kids are coming to me.  It is a privilege.  They are trusting me with their problems. They feel comfortable coming to me when there is something that they need because I am willing to listen and because I do try to help.

I think that every day I spend with these kids I learn so much more than they do.  Hopefully, I am learning enough to stay one step ahead of them.  Often I feel like I am juggling too many things at one time.  Sometimes one of the balls gets dropped.  But when that happens, the only option I have is to pick it up, hope that I did not do too much damage, and keep going.