It’s the third day of school and I can’t find my lunch count
paper and money envelope. The kids
keep coming up and asking me, as several have cash for lunch, and I haven’t a
clue. I can’t remember if I picked it up from my mailbox that morning, or the
afternoon before.
Fortunately, I have a one-on-one staff assistant this year
for a student in a wheel chair with muscular dystrophy. I ask her to please run to the office
to check my mailbox. She returns
empty handed, telling me she checked the other boxes nearby, the staff table,
and the women’s restroom, all for naught.
I keep a smile on my face, and shuffle through my desk
drawer for an envelope to put the kids money in. Then I write their name, lunch number and amount of money on
a post it, along with the lunch count and my name and room number. I smirk a bit when I notice my coffee
mug; “Keep Calm and Carry On”
emblazoned across the front.
A few minutes later, the kitchen lady calls my room and says
she doesn’t know who brought money.
It seems the post it fell off.
The kids and I recreate the needed information. Once again, we carry on. The next morning, I stop by the kitchen
and humbly ask for a replacement lunch sheet and envelope. I had thought perhaps I had picked them
up inadvertently and left them with a stack of correcting at home. I had not.
Of course, several days later I did find the missing materials, under a stack of “Read All About
Me” posters on the counter. I now
have a spare set, which I will surely use.
The morning progresses, with my usual hunt for my favorite
purple dry erase marker, or my cute new owl pointer, and the never-ending
search for the clipboard with my planning notes. It’s a typical day in Room
111.
Later, I’ll be frantically tossing papers off my desk,
trying to find the science folio that I was reading while eating my salad at
lunch. I give up; open the
connecting door between my room and Angie’s, telling her I can’t find it. She
offers hers, which I gratefully grab as I’m opening my door for the kids to
come in. This year we’ve extended the lunch recess, and given up the late
afternoon one. Great idea in
theory, but in reality tough, as there is no break between literacy and
science, so I need to be prepared for both before the kids return from lunch
recess.
I shouldn’t really need the teacher notes, as I’ve been
teaching this same exact science unit for a decade! I know it, or should know it, by heart. But, a funny thing happens on the way
through my lessons. I forget
chunks, or fairly important vocabulary words, or leave out part of the
directions. I don’t know if it’s
because I’ve taught it so much that I just forget I haven’t already said what I
need to say (this year!), or if it’s the ADD running amok within.
The day before I had merrily taken the kids on a jaunt
around the building, with notebooks and pencils in hand. We were busily counting our footsteps,
along each wall, and we were going to create a “birds eye view” map of the
building. We’re all having a grand ole time, despite the 95-degree temp. We return to the classroom, and I model
for them how to draw out the building, and never once get back to the averaging
lesson I had planned on, using their group data to determine approximate
distance for each wall. I also
neglected to discuss and post the new vocabulary: model, grid lines, boundary,
map, and cartographer. There’s
always tomorrow.
Suddenly, the patrol kids are getting ready to go, so we
stop for planners, then the kinder helpers get ready to go, and the rest of us
get ready to go and play silent ball. Day over!
Nobody tries harder than I do to stay organized. I am the
Queen Bee of organizational tools.
I have labeled file drawers, labeled cubbies. I label the supply drawers. I have files and file holders and labels up the kazoo . . .
and I can’t find a darn thing. I paid my daughter to come in last spring and
completely reorganize my four-drawer file cabinet. She did a beautiful job, and all files are in alphabetical
order: algebra, area, decimals, division and so on. She consolidated all multiple folders into one, (I think she
found four or five labeled algebra) and I love it.
The problems arise when I remove a file, or a few papers
from a file. They get lost, buried beneath the scads of papers that pass
through my fingertips each day. I have a file box labeled with the days of the
week, presumably so that I can file the papers I will need for any given
day. This would be fabulous if,
one, I actually put the papers in the correct file, or two, if I remember that I did put the papers in the correct file folder! Many days I’m
looking for a set of papers, that I had seen moments earlier, but forget that I
put them in the file (and never once look there until I am filing the next
week’s papers!)
When my dear friend Deb was my teaching pal, she always kept
the important papers. She kept an
accurate calendar, knew when to order what, and the 5th grade team
was a smooth running machine. When
she moved to another school, she passed all her files on to me. Yep, it was scary.
For a couple years, I was the only consistent member of the
team, as my teammates kept changing grade level positions. I was in charge.
Yikes!
I managed to hold it together, and
get things ordered in a timely manner, for the most part. I was good about
passing materials on to my teammates, but it was a running joke whether I could
keep track of my own. I was often
borrowing back one copy so I could go run a copy for myself until I ran across
the curiously hidden copies of my own.
Just so you know, I nearly always find my papers eventually. I draw the line at wasting paper on
making new ones (unless they’re really
important.)
You’d think that, as a teacher, I
would recognize ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) in myself. Lord knows I’ve had plenty of students
who are “attention challenged”. Yet, it wasn’t until one of my daughters was
diagnosed while in high school that I realized I was, too. After going over the checklist of
behaviors for her, it was sobering to discover there were very few I didn’t exhibit. I just always thought I was
scatterbrained. (Which I am, but,
there’s a diagnosis for that now!) Whew!
Several years ago, while chatting
with my then principal, I mentioned it.
She looked at me and said, “It must be very hard for you!” It is, no
question about it. It’s hard
keeping track, and it’s even harder to stay on track. But, I’m a good teacher, and maybe, the ADD kind of works in
my favor. I totally “get” the kids
who share my challenges. I can
laugh with them. I hopefully help
them with organization. My kids
grow and improve and test scores demonstrate success. My students love me as
much as I love them. They continue
to come back to visit, volunteer in my classroom when in high school, and
invite me to their graduation parties.
The current kids help me, too.
They become pros at keeping track of my teaching stuff. It’s way better losing my clipboard at
school, as one of the kids can spot it in a matter of seconds. At home, it’s a totally different
story. I can lose stuff for
years. (Well, I can do that at
school too. I still can’t find my favorite
red timer that I lost last April!) It’s a mystery.
This may, or may not, be my last
year teaching. I would imagine
that any job is hard if you’re ADD, but I find it incredibly frustrating. I waste a lot of time, searching,
shuffling through stacks of papers, and sadly, re-creating. It is a daunting
task to attempt to keep up, and I fail miserably on a daily basis. Across the
room as I write, there is a rolling cart stuffed with papers that I brought
home on Friday to sort through and organize. I’m exhausted just thinking about that task. Yet, it true
and typical ADD fashion, I’ve completely gotten sidetracked and written this
blog post instead of doing my homework!
This weekend I have to prepare
files for three students who will be leaving my class on Wednesday. Emotionally, that’s hard. I’ve known since the first day of
school (nearly two weeks ago) that we were overloaded, but the shift wasn’t decided on until
Friday. Sitting in the conference
room with the principal and the other 4th and 5th grade
teachers, trying to determine who would be a good “fit” for the newly created
4/5 split, was hard.
The general public often doesn’t
understand the teacher heart. We
miraculously love those kids the moment we meet them. They may try our patience, exasperate us, and confound us. But nothing stops us from that
unconditional love that seeps into our heart once a child is placed in our
classroom. When they leave, either willingly or unwillingly, a piece of our
heart goes with them. This may be truer for elementary teachers than middle or
high school, but I think all teachers feel the tug.
That’s another post . . .
