3 Days November 11, 2009

MONDAY

All 21 kids showed up for the first time ever. I didn’t have enough chairs, enough copies, or enough patience. I had stayed up too late the night before, which was my fault, but didn’t help the situation. My newest student would not stop crying. There was not enough me to go around. I finally put the kids down for a nap and had a very difficult meeting with the parent of a student who, at a very new 4, is the only student in my class to be reading. We talked about how her daughter does not like coming to school and about how there is very little I can do. I watched her walk away frustrated and sad.

TUESDAY

20 students today. Everything went fine until about 12:30 during the last bathroom break before nap time. One of my students started falling back on the bench he was sitting on while waiting for his turn. My assistant caught him and he went limp. She said his name and he came to. She asked him if he could stand up and when he tried he went limp again. He was hurried off to his mother by my assistant, then to the doctor and then to the emergency room. Meanwhile, alone with the rest of the class, my newest student has had a poop accident in her pants and does not have spare clothes and another student upon getting back to the classroom decided to take a wet paint brush and paint all over the desk. When yelled at, she became inconsolable, crying her little eyes out. Another student then started to cry. The rest of the students are taking this time as a free for all.

WEDNESDAY

19 students today. My newest student has another inconsolable day and as she cannot speak English, I cannot help her in any way, nor can my assistant. I found out that my student who passed out yesterday most likely had a seizure. I was under the impression that I would be observing in a different school today, but got the dates wrong which throughly bummed me out.  I had a student draw a disturbing picture including his dad, his mother , who was crying, his brother, and himself with a gun. A conversation with him about it did not make me feel any better so I had to report it to administration which always means more paperwork. At lunch, a little girl threw up on herself. My new student’s father ran into our class (yes, she was still crying) and took his daughter, then came back to talk to me about his concerns with his daughter in my class. My assistant had to leave because she wasn’t feeling well. I wasn’t feeling well either, but I couldn’t leave. I had a little girl wake up soaked with pee and 5 others needing to go to the bathroom. Again, there wasn’t enough me to go around.

All of the events of the past 3 days have put me into complete exhaustion. I don’t know how much longer I can take it all… if something doesn’t change I don’t think I’m going to make it through this school year. May seems like years and years away and I have nothing left to give. Nothing.

Tomorrow is my day to go observe another school. I get a day away from the mosque and all it’s issues to go try to learn about how to fix them. I am considering tomorrow’s small break a big gift from a God who loves me and knows what I need. I just hope it works.

Doing it yourself… and why I’ve been gone November 3, 2009

Dear Faithful Blog Readers,

I’m sorry I’ve been gone. I’m sorry I’ve kind of disappeared as far as this blog has gone… I do have a reason, but it isn’t an excuse: I have been burnt out and overwhelmed.

The burning out is all job related… I’m over any newness that may have stuck around and now I’m just praying every day that God get me through that day and give me a shard of joy as I do it. It shouldn’t surprise me that I don’t particularly like it… I never wanted to be an early childhood teacher and here I am, teaching preschool. I’m just thankful to get through each day as it comes.

The overwhelmed part is everything combined: what I WANT to do and what I HAVE to do. The want to do stuff might not even be what you’re thinking- it comes down to cleaning my room and making time to make Halloween costumes… and hanging out with people. The have to do stuff is stuff like work and oil changes and hanging out with grandparents. You know… those things you just can’t get away from. It all just boils down to me being overwhelmed with almost everything.

But in the end, people and hanging out with my friends comes first and will continue to come first. I will most likely no longer be blogging every day… the people in my life are too important to put a blog before them. So you’ll know when I blog, but it won’t happen every day. Just when I have a little piece of wisdom or a funny story.

Like this…

Today we were making kites. Not real kites, just a little paper and straw kite to stand for our letter of the week (K) and to help the kids practice their cutting and gluing and following directions skills. I had a few who cut their kites into two… I say kites plural because I gave them each two because they messed their first ones up so badly. They turned out messy and I’m sure the parents will have a raised eyebrow when they find these “kites” in their child’s take home folder.

So many things with preschoolers would be SO much easier if I just did them myself. Like lightyears easier. Simple things like ripping a piece of paper towel for the kids to dry their hands after washing them or more complicated things like cutting out a shape. It’s hard sometimes to let the kids do it. It takes longer, it gets messy, it can frustrate the poop out of you.

But so many times that’s exactly what I have to do. I have to hold myself back and let the kids do it, whether or not it looks good, goes quickly, or makes me crazy.

It’s what God’s attitude is towards us. Of course it would be SO much easier for him to just swoop in and do whatever it is that needs to be done in our lives so it looks good and makes more sense. Of course it’s gonna take longer and be more messy. But he lets us do it on our own so we’ll learn.

There are no lessons you learn from sitting back and letting someone else do the work. My kids would never learn how to cut if I didn’t give them a pair of scissors and say “go for it.” They would never learn how to be independent if I always put their shoes on, ripped off a paper towel, or colored for them. It would be a heck of a lot easier on me, but o the lessons they wouldn’t learn!

Please don’t misunderstand the message of this blog… Of course God comes in and helps from time to time, just like I come in and help my kids from time to time. He is always there, watching over our shoulder, but he also lets us do things ourselves, knowing it’ll result in a lesson somewhere down the road and we’ll be better because of it.

It’s really kinda cool. God’s pretty cool himself.