My name is Paige and I’ll be your conductor for the foreseeable future We’re leaving Sanity Station and heading straight for Emotional Avenue. Please keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times and make sure to have tissues on hand; it’s going to be a bumpy ride..
I don’t even know where to begin in explaining my current state of mind. The past week has been like a never ending emotional tidal wave. One minute I’m stressed about end of the semester lesson planning and grading and the next I’m laughing with my students and the stress is gone. Not even ten minutes later I’m back in a panic about having lessons ready for my replacement. We have our school’s Christmas show this week and we’ve been trying to get decorations up around the school and the students prepped for their roles. Just last week, my co-op and I were talking about grades when it suddenly hit us both how much we’ll miss each other (insert the waterworks here) and that’s just another of the goodbyes I am not looking forward too. Oh and did I mention I’ve been packing up my apartment and trying to send out totes to my new village? It’s been non-stop movement and as if I didn’t have trouble sleeping already, this week has caused me to start drinking coffee again. I’m thinking about starting a caffeine IV drip, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.
Once you factor in the exhaustion of the semester, all of the things that still need to be done, the knowledge that I’ve almost made it through my first semester of teaching, and the bittersweet feeling of leaving Pilot Point, you’ve got the end result of an emotional wreck. I cried more than once last week just because I knew I’d get to see my friends from home in just a week and a half. Not only am I excited to be home with my family, but I am excited for my next adventure to begin in Nondalton. There are just so many emotions swirling around and they are all hitting me at once. Sometimes I just sit at my desk and go into an almost catatonic state just because my mind is so far into overdrive.
As if all of my own emotional turmoil wasn’t enough, I have 12 students who are slowly checking out of school for the semester and becoming upset at my impending departure from their lives. I have faced quite the amount of defiance from my students in the past week and I can equate most of it to them pushing me away. While I’d like to leave my kids in good spirits, the reality is that they are hurting and I have caused this hurt. I know that I am doing nothing wrong and only doing what’s best for me, but for these children it’s a form of abandonment. They are putting on brave faces and trying to stop their hurt by pushing me away. One minute they are talking about the things they want to do with me before I leave and the next they are refusing to do school work and talking back to me. At one point last week, I just wanted to scream because my math students were acting like we haven’t learned a single thing all year.
At the end of the day however, I am just reminding myself how amazing this journey has been up to this point. I’ve dealt with stress and chaos before and I can handle it now. I feel like I’m drowning in such varying emotions, but when it comes down to it, I’m just trying to enjoy my last week in Pilot Point. I took a break from the sad emotions and focused on making more happy memories by rounding up half of my students this weekend to get out for a walk on the beach. Outside of the classroom, they showed no defiance whatsoever which was great. We’re all tired and ready for a few weeks off, but I know that most of the behavior problems are caused by the change coming their way. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that my last week of teaching out here in PIP goes smoothly and without too many emotional meltdowns (from myself or the kids).
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