Shit Hitting the Fan

It's been awhile, so here is a quick update:

• Last Monday, a fight broke out in the middle of our morning assembly.
• The fight carried over into our passing period between 1st and 2nd period, becoming two additional fights.
• NONE of kids were suspended, and we have not addressed the issue as a school.
• I found out this past weekend (only through my own efforts to get a second and third opinion) that my school gave me bad information and my credential will expire this summer before I meet all the necessary requirements, so now I have to file for an appeal.
• I have to pay for the appeal.
• Even though the "semester" ended like a week before Thanksgiving, the kids are just now getting their report cards. One of my kids said today, "I bet it's because we can't afford stamps."
• We ran out of toilet paper on Wednesday and did not get more until today.
• The most depressing: my best kids are telling me they can't keep up with this schedule and several of them are looking for a new school. But hey, who can blame them? I'm doing the same thing.

Stressed Much?

With our recent holiday, I decided to give myself a much-needed break from all things teaching. While my break was fun and restful, I have to admit that my heart was heavy much of the time. It was hard for me to mentally leave school and all its problem.

Nothing illustrated that more than waking up Friday morning and not being able to move my left arm more than a foot beyond my waist. At first I thought I slept on it funny, then as the day progressed, I thought I had injured a muscle or even a tendon. I winced trying to do dishes or change clothes. Saturday and Sunday were no different in spite of ibuprofen, ice, and heat.

Sunday evening I was a lucky recipient of a massage--a gift beyond all gifts. While the massage therapist worked on my arm, I could feel her grab a hold of several knots encasing my left shoulder. I'm sure I'm exaggerating, but they felt like they were the size of small eggs. As she pressed on them, small electrical charges ran down my left arm and all the way up my neck to the base of head. No muscle injury or tendon tear. Just plain full out stress.

Sprawled out on that table, I felt like a sucker. My job is doing this to me, and I'm responsible for letting it do this to me. I don't have a lot of fight left in me, but I have enough fight to believe I deserve more. 

I called on a friend late last night, and we met up today. She was a mentor teacher to me at my last school, and returning to her and to a place that was a teaching home before my layoff was, for lack of a better phrase, like a homecoming. I felt like I could breathe, like I could let my guard down, like I could pull my shoulders from my ears and actually be honest. I looked her in the eye--this person who I admire and who helped me become what I am as a teacher--and said, "I don't know if I can do this anymore." I cried a little, talked a lot; she listened and gave advice, but more than anything she was present.

I'm reminded why she was, and continues to be, a mentor teacher. I walked away this evening remembering I'm a good teacher. I'm not right now because of circumstances, but I'm damn good at what I do, and it's not my fault that my school is in utter disaster mode every single day. All I can do is get out. I choose my profession over my job. I choose reclaiming myself.