This work

I have a hard time writing here because so many things happen every day.  I want to be able to sit down and write a deep and meaningful post that is well written and that accurately and beautifully describes all of the wonderfully hard things that are happening in my life right now.  But instead, I need to realize that there is power and importance in the act of writing, as raw and grammatically incorrect as it might be. 

I never thought that I would become one of those people whose work becomes their life.  But I also never imagined that I would be partaking in this type of work.  This work that consumes all of who I am.  This work that keeps me awake at night with pictures of the faces of my sweet and struggling students.  This work that pushes me and challenges me in new ways every day. This work that constantly brings me to new breaking points and then allows me to try again.  This work that drives my thoughts, dreams, actions, and conversations.  This work is sacred.  

My work is about to change.  I have been training and teaching summer school for the past 5 weeks, and next week starts a new chapter.  Soon I will be moving down to Hazlehurst where I will be teaching 5th to 8th grade special education for the next 2 years.  The first step in moving somewhere is finding somewhere to move to.  So Saturday I drove down to Hazlehurst to go house hunting.  It was one of the most overwhelming days I have had in a while.  We went down there with the purpose of trying to find a house but wound up getting lots of sneak peaks about what life will be like that I just wasn't ready for yet.  Hazlehurst is the 397th school in Mississippi out of 401 schools.  And Mississippi has the lowest schools in the country.  So, needless to say, there is a lot of work to be done there.  So many things about the school seem both incredibly exciting and entirely terrifying.   Here is a link to an article about my new principal that says a little bit about what I'm going into: http://www.eclassifiedsnetwork.com/v2/content.aspx?module=ContentItem&ID=211679&MemberID=1230

While we were in Hazlehurst, we attempted to find a house.  What a grown-up task.  I'm definitely not ready for it yet.  There are so many things to consider and so many things that I still need to call my parents about.  The good news is that I have roommates.  I know that I will be living with Rachel and this other wonderful girl we met here at institute named Sarah.  I am beyond excited about this situation.  Now all we need to do is find a place.  We found a charming little house that we fell in love with, but there have been a lot of questions and problems we are trying to work through to find the best fit.  Please pray that we would find a house and that we would be able to move in quickly.  We are kicked out of the dorms at 9am on monday morning.  As of now, I have no house, no car, and a room full of things that have nowhere to go and no means of getting nowhere to.  prayers would be much appreciated because I honestly have no time to figure anything out this week. 

This week is my very first last week of school.  Summer school ends on Friday with a celebration day.  Thursday is the day that my students take their end of summer assessment.  Wednesday is the day that I teach my last full math lesson.  I thought that institute and being a teacher would get easier as the weeks went on, but they only continue to get harder.  I am on my 5th week of about 20 hours of sleep during the week.  I am exhausted. and drained.  and so tired of continuously failing. 

My students are each expected to reach these big summer growth goals.  Some of my students are eligible for passing up into the 6th grade if they can earn a 70% on their end of summer assessment.  My students have definitely been improving over these past 4 weeks, but definitely not at the rate they should be.  They are definitely capable of learning these objectives.  They are capable of mastering this test.  They want to learn.  They are smart.  I will learn to be an effective teacher.  But I'm not there yet.  I have been learning and improving, but it has not been enough. I so desperately want my students to learn, improve, gain confidence in their abilities, and to go into 6th grade prepared.  But this work is hard.  At least 9 out of my 17 students have special needs.  I'm not allowed to see their IEPs or to know how they learn differently because the laws do not require it for summer school.  My heart is so broken for them because these are children who have been continuously struggling and at the bottom of the chain, year after year, even with a special education teacher in the classroom, an IEP, and accomodations and modifications.  It frustrates me that these children are expected to excel in my class during the summer when I am a very inexperienced teacher, there is no special educator or someone to work with them one-on-one, and they cannot have the typical accomodations that they do during the school year.  They need so much more that I have not been able to give them.  Nonetheless, each one of my students has one more day to learn one more new objective and to review the past 30 until they take their test on Thursday.

Please pray for miracles.  Pray that my lesson tomorrow is the best one I've taught yet.  Please pray that there will be connections where there has formerly only been gaps.  Pray for student motivation and teacher patience.  Pray for wisdom to know how to teach and review in a way that clicks for each one of my students.  Pray for wisdom to know which students need extra help in these last days.  Please pray that these tests would be true reflections of the hard work that these students have put into this class this summer.  But mostly, pray that I would remember the purpose in all of this.  If even one of my students is able to pass into the next grade or just go into their current grade with more knowledge and confidence, then that is still a big deal.  I pray that the work that has been done this summer will have eternal and everlasting impacts.


This work is the hard work.  But it's also the good work.

prayingprayingpraying,
Em