It’s those small moments, that almost go unnoticed, completely off-script, that I need to capture and hold. Not the grudges, not the petty insults and bad-faith colleagues. In passing, somehow the topic of what I’m currently teaching right now came up: and be clear, if I never had to touch To Kill a Mockingbird again I’d be a happy ELA teacher. But, it’s on the Honors 9 curriculum, so I created a unit of study for all my 9th grade ELA classes. Something like, “the other 9th grade teachers are doing short stories or Animal Farm now, but I’m doing this for all students, not just honors…” and one of my GenEd students, “And you’re the real one for that, Mrs. Love.”
It’s Winter Break now. This is my 18th winter break. That’s how I keep track of time now. Not January – December, but August though June. Educators have their own hemispheres and Stonehenges. (Wait, I can’t pluralize Stonehenge…) I will be thinking, creating, and planning a lot of things over my unpaid break. But what I am desperately trying to do is not overthink, over-create, and over-plan.
A charismatic student asked me the penultimate day before break, pondering what he has actually learned in my class. I wish my teaching style didn’t cause students to feel so…befuddled? We talked it through, and I said I hope there is one thing you take away, and that is the ability to understand and participate in thematic discussions. I asked him what he thought theme meant, and he, and another student participating in this spontaneous conversation, grasped at “plot…characters…setting…” and all the other academic language of literary devices, and we walked through it again, and said it’s the big message, the big idea, the possible answers to burning questions.
There is a small homunculus gremlin nagging at me, too. She says things to me like, “my “Your former PLN off of the bird app has moved on, they don’t need you, and don’t want you at their parties anymore”, and I’m looking and thinking about all the times we split off and veer down different paths, and decide who’s in our timeline moving forward.
The beautiful light homunculus says, “You can create your own timeline, silly. Remember, you’re the real one.”
So now that I’ll quit having imaginary conversations in my mind, I’ll go do my best to be true to myself, because I’ve been certainly befuddled this past year. Calendar year, that is.