Where I’ve Been

These days, every time I begin a post I end up saving it to my drafts.  Why?  Cause I’m tap-dancing.  There’s really no other way to say it.  I wish I wasn’t but it’s the truth.  How am I supposed to be transparent?  When it comes down to it, what I am as a teacher is the three descriptives I used as a salutation in a ranting email to a friend in Regina last Friday: I’m a student-teacher, I’m a friend, and I’m a freak, and bloody heck, I’m really really OK with all that!

 See, here is the conflict… early September as the teaching philosophy began to really be tested…  meaning, no more pretty hypothetical lesson plans and thesis length unit plans for the University of This-is-Perfect.  It’s the real world my friendly-bloggers and even though you may have shared with me a million times how the education milieu comes home to roost, nothing can make it real like kids, real kids, in real situations!  OK, so that’s not new, but it’s always new to me, even for this mom of 12 1/2 years.   

Oh, the September thing, yah… well, way back as I was learning my way, my mom, with whom I often share about my kids, my day, my world, who is a retired administrator, who gained her fierce Dragon Lady, no shit-reputation for always putting kids first, shared that there are two kinds of teachers, those who are “documenting for dismissal and those who are celebrating success.”  See, I only want to be transparent, and I feel I cannot because I’m not under contract… ….

But I’ve not been away these last few months.  No, so what’s been happening?  Using the line of one of the best RAP facilitators around, I’ve been becoming Irrationally Crazy about kids.  I’m great at relationships, I’m a friend to my kids and I listen well.  I swoop kids up into my arms whether or not they’re in grade one, grade eight, or just out of Dojack.  I’m on their team, in their corner, and they know it!  I’ll never forget the feeling of school wholeness that I had during pre-internship when another teacher said to me, “Hey, as long as he’s successful, run with it!”  I know I’m incredibly thankful to my coop who puts kids first, always.  I  know cause not a week goes by where some of his former students don’t drop by for a visit – that’s a powerful kind of success, I’d say.

That’s where I’ve been, interning.  Learning.  Trusting.  Solidifying.  Believing.  Listening.  Laughing.  Mostly, oh, mostly, celebrating.  And, too, beginning….