When I began writing this post over 3 months ago I had felt I the logistics related to the end of my 70 weeks had been worked out a bit more. I had applied for a switch to another area of work at my school, moving me (hopefully) to a younger team with different students and experiences. I wanted this because I felt I needed more experience teaching different kinds of skills and with different types of behavioral programming to build me up for where I will go next year after I am done working where I am now. I felt this would prepare me more for public school and make me a better teacher for the students I would be working with. In addition, at this point I was burnt out from the bureaucracy and even some of the stressful situations of my position with my students. I found myself counting down the months until I could leave, thinking often about what life would be like next year, how it would be different, and honestly thinking about how, when I saw things that needed to be done that someone else would have to deal with them.
My negativity related to my burn out I supposed focused me on leaving my team rather than on appreciating my time with them.
Then one night I stood outside with a student, watching her paint the May twilight with bubbles. They floated up into the light, catching all the colors of the dying sunset. She would ask me to pop them but the lucky ones escaped my reach, floating up, up, showing the sun that from down below, appeared to have already gone down.
Appreciating the beauty of my situation for what it was, my students for who they are and for what they teach me about life every day I realized this time was precious and not something to throw away or count down the days until it ended. A voice said to me, "you're not done yet." Little did I know then how very much "not done" I was. But more on that later.
No comments:
Post a Comment