wild wind

It's been windy for four days straight and it's making me grumpy.

It makes my students mean.

We began our day with our morning song, as we always do, clapping and singing joyfully, "Good morning Julie! Good morning Julie! Good morning Julie! We're glad that you are here!"  Suddenly a student meanly yelled, "STOP!!!!!"  

We all stopped.

I looked over and gave my best teacher look.  The student who had yelled looked down and said defensively, "Well he's breathing loudly!" I took a deep breath and counted to 10 in my head.  It's a good thing students can't hear what we teachers are really thinking sometimes...am I right?   

That was my day...all day long. With each gust of wind stronger then the next, the words became more hurtful and my students became more impatient.  Someone was sitting 2cm too close to another student or using the green crayon THEY WERE GOING TO USE! 

These days can be exhausting towards the end of the year.  Sometimes I feel like everything I've taught them about tolerance, patience, and understanding has vanished from their brains. All of our hard work gone.  Because when it comes down to it, I know my students who have taken away these life long lessons of kindness and empathy will most likely be more successful and happier in life. 

Tomorrow we will start again. Baby steps back to where we were.  One of the greatest moments of teaching comes when you see your students internalizing what you have taught them...helping to pick up a friend who has once again toppled out of their chair from the imaginary earthquakes that seem to plague a primary classroom...when I hear an unprompted, "It's Cool!" to a friend who didn't quite get the answer right...when you see the queen bee of the classroom invite one of the quiet girls to play at recess...

Tomorrow we will make sure that everyone knows breathing is an acceptable activity to do at school and I will quietly be counting down the days until summer vacation :)