TGIF

What a week! I am celebrating so many thing….the anticipation of our family reuniting, my NC certification, time with my parents, and just loving life. Tony decided he would rather be with me than a job that wasn’t working out. As I write, he and Sana are packing up and heading down when it stops snowing long enough. He has no job. We have no idea where Sana will go to school. However, we figure it out after our household is once again complete.

After months of paperwork, my North Carolina certification has come through! Although I am not certified to teach Special Education (have to take a test for that), I can teach K-6 and Language Arts in grades 6-9. At some point, I will jump through the special education hoop. Although, I would rather not be labeled as an EC teacher. Too much paperwork. And, funny enough, six months later, my Colorado certification is about done. I now am legal to teach in three states: Maine, North Carolina, and Colorado. Might make more sense for me to spend the $2000 and get my national certification.

I have enjoyed having a couple of wives this last week. My parents came to visit. Each day I returned from work to a delicious, home-cooked meal cooked by my mother. Sean and Patti took it upon themselves to do the dishes afterward. All of them great wives! If only my mother were sticking around…

In the midst of my celebrations, my students are struggling with events in their lives whether it be moving on to high school, being shunned by a parent, or the murder of a relative. Each event making it difficult for them to do the academic work necessary. Johnston County runs a program for students 15 years of age called Fast Track. If the students successfully complete the first semester of 8^th grade (for the second time), they are eligible to start high school in the spring. I said goodbye to three today. In the past, it has been a quiet affair. It was quiet today also, but cake was served to celebrate these fine young men moving on. The challenges of high school await them. One is planning on going one day and then dropping out or moving to a different high school within a week. Another, would rather be working with his hands than working in school. The third, a boy with a magnetic personality, but who can’t seem to sit still. With any luck, high school will bring them what they have been looking for.

Yesterday, I went back to my desk after school and found a note addressed to me. Upon reading it, I discovered that the girl had told her mother she was bisexual. Her mother stopped talking to her and will not touch her at all. No hugs. No casual brush of the hands. Nothing. As a result, she began cutting again.

Today, I was asked if I knew about the murder in Benson last night. I have no television; therefore, no local news. I knew nothing of it and thought it was sad, but it didn’t strike my in the heart….until one of my students came in sobbing. The 20 year old that was shot was her cousin. One of my boys came in silent and sullen. He was a friend. Emotion for him was shown with a slow-boiling anger. A moment of silence was held during announcements during which time another student left the room in tears.  Announcements over and I began class with a reminder to be sensitive to their classmates. Before I was done speaking with the students about being caring, my assistant principal walked in. He was there to observe me. As he was settling into my seat and I began class, Sean walked in with cake for the boys who were leaving. I began class again. This time another girl who knew the boy came in crying and announced she had to talk to me. Within 30 seconds, I was juggling an observation, an interruption by my son and a student not in my class, and the knowledge several students were hurting. I got back to teaching. Of course, the activity I picked for the day involved a pistol, whiskey, and a lighter. (Before you go getting any ideas, it was an exercise in identifying what was necessary for survival after a plane crash. Other items were available to them also, of course.) I have yet to see my observation, but I have no doubt, the first 15 minutes or so of class are going to be interesting reading. Towards the end of class, a group of eight girls from 5^th grade to 8^th grade came walked in and came over to me. Some of them I didn’t know. They came in to say thank you and get a hug. We had lunch together.  I didn’t understand why they would all seek me out. I had done nothing for them to thank me for.

The real guidance of the day for the girls came from my principal. She felt the death of this student in her heart. With red-rimmed eyes, she told me how he was one of her students. A behavior student trying so hard to do the right thing, yet unable to reach out to the hand offered to him.  She cried again as she was telling me. A woman with a tremendous heart for her children. A woman who understands. I shared with her the students’ words of thanks and that I really hadn’t done anything. She looked at me and said, “But you have. You genuinely care about them and have since you met them. You treat them all as if they matter. That is what they are thanking you for.”