3 Days

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.