A much needed break this weekend. Getting home on Friday night I went into a four hour coma, only to wake up and have a date with my roommates, our couch, a huge bowl of guacamole, and a Blue Moon. YUM. Follow that with another 11 hours of sleep and you've got one recharged human being for the next morning.
I met with my Program Director at Starbucks to talk over the first week. She popped in on Thursday morning to observe my classroom (after a frantic e-mail on Wednesday night) and we talked a lot about how to make my room better and what to do if situations like Tuesday and Wednesday's happen again. I felt great afterward, so I decided to celebrate by buying two pairs of totally impractical stilettos with money that I don't have. When I say impractical, I mean that one pair is only appropriate for going OUT on the town (something I'll be doing so much, judging from my 7 pm bedtime Friday night). I proceeded to take a nap, take a shower, and curl my hair for a little over an hour. In short, I did NOTHING and it was absolutely glorious.
There was a TFA party in NoDa for three of our corps members' birthdays, and it was good to talk to other people who had problems in their first week too... made me feel a little less like a failure since everyone I had talked to before that had only thumbs up about everything they did. There was one college moment when Backstreet Boys and Journey came on, and it made me miss it (and the lack of responsibility, and the generally higher coolness level of my life).
BUT it's also energizing to think about what I'm doing now, even though it's hard as hell and I suck at it, because in the end I'm going to be doing something for these kids that may completely alter their futures. If I get them on and above grade level after this year, then they have a better chance being at the same place for second grade, third grade, fourth grade, and every grade after that. In that way, I feel like I can close the gap before it even starts. Even if they don't remember first grade, I think this age sticks with you whether you realize it or not.
My first grade teacher, Mrs. Roth (an ancient old lady who smelled like coffee), wrote on my last report card of first grade that someday I would write the Great American novel. Now, clearly I'm not there yet, not even close, but I majored in creative writing, I love writing, and it's something I think about every day as a future option. It wasn't her that defined it as a major life path for me, but she sure did see it coming.
Maybe that's what I'll be for these kids, some invisible force behind their whole education driving them towards that future goal of theirs, whatever it might be. I'm ending this post with a quote my mom sent me this week after the second day (and meltdown number 2):
"In teaching you cannot see the fruit of a day's work. It is invisible and remains so, maybe for twenty years."
- Jacques Barzun
No comments:
Post a Comment