Hello dear readers,

TWO WEEKS. No, wait. You can’t even call it “two weeks” because we haven’t spent two weeks in school! We were given a five day weekend, what with Rosh Hashanah coinciding with the Labor Day weekend. For some strange reason, my county also decided to give us this past Friday off, so yeah…NINE SCHOOL DAYS LATER…

I’m already on a mini vacation.

I’m not upset. I’m not trying to complain. I guess, the thing is, I was trying to get a routine back after summer vacation. Just as I started to get used to, oh, being a teacher once more as I enter year four (ha, that rhymed! I’m up by 5:30, in bed no later than 10 PM), this break happens and I feel like it’s summer all over again.

Except for, you know, the lack of doctor’s visits, selfish love interests (see two posts ago), and less humidity in the air.

I know my body needed the break though. I have never felt this tired in my life, not even after my first year of teaching, and it has been a struggle getting back to being in a regular sized classroom. I haven’t “teachered” in over a year and I know I’m off my game. I feel my classroom management is a mess, the students have been somewhat apathetic to the fact that they’re students again, I teach five straight sections (2 US/VA History, 3 English Language Arts, AKA: ELA) and immediately sit at my desk the moment I’m on my planning periods - I’m pretty sure my pelvic pain I’d also mentioned two posts ago is causing my abnormal exhaustion. I should be tired - the first week is always difficult - but not this tired.

As for post-school activities, I have not left once “on time” (at 3 PM) during the first nine days. For two hours after dismissal, I’ve been sweating bullets outside while running around like an idiot trying to figure out what buses have arrived (or haven’t), all to ensure my students got home safely. Bus pickup was a disaster during the first week and some of my students had to wait for their parents to pick them up once they realized they missed their bus, but I was relieved my students made it safely home, and I’ve started building positive relationships with them because of these incidents.

Probably not the best thing to admit, but I’ve been skipping my lunch because, really, who eats lunch at 11:10 in the morning? My one student noticed I don’t eat lunch and I told her that once I’m caffeinated, I don’t need lunch. I still get my usual hazelnut iced coffee at Starbucks every morning (although pumpkin foam cold brew is back in season, #bless). Lisa, however, saved me with a Dunk run one particularly bad morning when I didn’t have time to stop for my coffee.

You’d think: maybe this girl should try to go out and relax once she’s done; maybe it’ll help with her exhaustion. Well, I don’t socialize late into the evening. Lisa and I went out for dinner once with our other dear colleague, Rodrigo, the school’s Spanish teacher. Cymone and I caught up at a dive restaurant one evening in Stafford for a girl’s night so I could hear all about her new adventures teaching at the high school. Even on those nights, I was still in bed by 10 PM. My bed is my true happiness right now. Sleep is NOT for the weak. What is dating, I ask you, when all I can think about is what Nearpod lesson am I going to do on prefixes and suffixes next week? I can tell you one thing - if that guy from two posts ago hadn’t run away like a coward from my health problems, he certainly would’ve run away from my commitment to my job.

I’ve also skillfully avoided my parents these last two weeks. I texted my mom and told her how my days were going. We had one, maybe two, phone calls, but I kept up the excuse of “I’m so tired” that I didn’t go by their house to say hello. Not even for the sake of seeing the “bubbas” (Pershing and Patton) and Millie. I’ve also spent the last two weeks rethinking my life choices of being a teacher, so physically steering clear of my dad, who would already be telling me government service if he realized how burnt out I am already feeling, certainly was the best decision I could’ve made. I do not need him to remind me the possibilities he wants me to take in the government sector - I can make those decisions by myself. I mentally cannot handle my father’s criticisms and “profound” advice, so the physical distance has been beneficial.

ALL this being said, I am still thrilled to be back in my classroom. I know I’ve had my days of doubt, but this too shall pass. I don’t think any teacher has had an “easy” return to the classroom after a year in a pandemic. I need to give myself grace. God willing, by next school year, everything will be “normal” again. No masks, no distancing, no basing my classroom management on “sweetheart, please fix your mask,” and no more unstable environments for my students. They deserve to have their friends, their extra-curricular activities, their sports, and their lives away from home. Right now, they don’t seem to understand that their behavior, as they readapt to being in the classroom, can have all their privileges taken away - I emphasize that I want them to have their fun outside of school, but that it won’t just be handed to them. They truly need to earn it and I’ll be glad to help them earn it.

I love my new classroom. I was truly able to transform the space into my cozy little corner of the world (away from my house, of course), and even my students have been curious as to all the historical posters I affixed to the walls. I wish I had more storage space - that is a current work in progress - and I’m still working on how I want to seat my students, but I know in time, I’ll feel comfortable running my new classroom. It’s so different from my old one (this one has windows; I’m getting used to having cell phone service again). All I need to do is adapt and improvise.

Adapt and improvise. That’s also what I need to do when it comes to getting my students to pick up a book once more. They do not, to put it bluntly, like to read. If they read, they read at lower Lexile levels - most of them, on average, are reading at a fourth grade level. These are seventh graders. Their favorite series are ones that my mom consistently read to her first graders; offerings of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Captain Underpants variety. The latter is a series I remember reading when I was in second grade. They cling to graphic novels, citing that they prefer the pictures rather than the words. While I am glad they are at least reading, they do not have stamina. So I adapt and improvise by offering them choice. I let them pick what they want for now, but I challenge them to, for example, find a new book that might be in their literary interest when we get the opportunity to go to the school’s library. I remind them that building stamina by reading every day will help them read through the more challenging (and less picture filled) novels they will be required to read in high school. Imagine going from Captain Underpants in seventh grade to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird or Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club in ninth grade? Yikes. I remember reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter as a sophomore. I struggled with that one a bit, and I had been raised to be a voracious reader! If I can provide the opportunity to give my students independent reading time and all the choices in the world (within my teacher’s budget) to build their stamina for high school and, well, the real world, then I will be satisfied knowing I did my part as their ELA classroom teacher.

A word of advice to you working parents, or even single parents who may not have the opportunity or time to read to your children:

Please, if you’re still able to - read a story to your children whenever you can.

I’ve realized my students have never had the simple luxury of having their parents or guardians sit with them at night and read them a bedtime story. I truly believe this is a moment where a love of reading can be instilled…especially if the children haven’t entered school (or are just about to).

I remember my mamá telling me a story every night, without fail. My personal favorite was when she read to me, still to this day, one of my favorite books of all time - Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess. I still live by Sara Crewe’s (the ‘little princess’ in question, although this quote is from the movie, not the novel, but hey, it works…the super appropriate title of this post, however, is from the novel) words, even as an anxiety-ridden, consistently heartbroken, almost thirty year old:

I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they live in tiny old attics. Even if they dress in rags, even if they aren’t pretty, or smart, or young. They’re still princesses.

Even if I wasn’t considered pretty or smart enough for the last guy to stay by my side, I know in my hardest of hearts that I am a princess - I am capable of being loving, graceful, kind, and forgiving, and that is Sara Crewe’s lesson to those who have hurt and wronged her, both in the novel and film adaptation. She is still able to be a good person, despite how her enemies treated her. Burnett’s novel is not about how one looks, or what one wears, to be a princess, but by how one acts. I carried this lesson with me the moment my mother told me this story and will always cherish these words, even as I get older. Reading to your child at such a precocious and crucial stage in their lives - before they are forced to take standardized testing, which, I am sure what takes most of the joy of reading away from my students - will foster a forever love of reading. At the very least, reading to your child can establish an early stamina of being able to read various texts at (or above) grade level.

Case in point: I ended up having to read a short story for one of my ELA classes - my 5th period with, arguably, the lowest Lexile scores - before we discussed the text. I asked them if they wanted me to read the story to them, if we could take turns reading, or if they wanted to read it silently and independently.

They all chose the first option. So I read Gary Soto’s La Bamba aloud and they honestly looked riveted as they listened to me. Some thought it was almost like “nap time,” in a way - they put their heads down and rested as they absorbed every word of the story. They enjoyed the story and were able to respond to the actual lesson I was teaching with La Bamba - the theme - but it made me think back to summer school, when one of my class periods told me that no one ever read to them when they were little. When I asked them if they wanted me to read them a story, they eagerly agreed, and for the rest of the summer term, I read aloud to them and they listened attentively.

My summer school’s class response broke my heart. It had never occurred to me that some students, unlike me, never had their family members read them a story.

So I’m trying to keep this possibility in mind now that I’m teaching full-time again…that maybe, just maybe, with a little verbal storytelling, my reluctant readers will start to come out of their shell and want to read out loud (and pick out more challenging books) before the school year ends.

Keep the love of reading in my classroom alive - here’s a link to my Amazon wish list for my classroom library. Donate if you’re able to - let these students of mine know that there are people out there (total strangers) who are advocating for their continued successes. I’ll be updating the list regularly.

So, despite all the craziness, I’ve survived and lived to tell the tale. I’m back to teachering (yes, this is now a verb) tomorrow, but I do call it a productive long weekend, as I was able to get this blog updated. Yay! Little victories and such. That’s all for now, but be ready for a post on how we, as a class, approach our first review of historical thinking - coming up soon, and of course, the first unit of our history course: reconstruction. I’ll let John Green give y’all a preview of the topics we’ll be focusing on, and as promised…check out my hybrid ELA/History classroom in all its beautiful glory.

Until next time…

Many happy returns,

Kate