Singing the Skyand rockin’ tha house

I’ve almost cried once today. And I actually did cry before that. It’s been such a roller-coaster of a day.

The first thing that happened was that Sage was getting an award at school today (for music!) and I had to work. I did walk over to his school to drop off some goodies for the class, and when I saw the other parents filing into the auditorium, I just totally choked up, because I wanted to be there instead of at work.

One of our instructional aides saw the tears in my eyes when I got back and asked what was wrong. I told her and she got someone to cover my class. So I walked back over there and got to see my kiddo get his award!

I ended up telling my students about this experience–how very difficult it is to be both the parent you want to be and do the job you want to do. Some of my students take parenthood lightly, so I suppose I was hoping to convey how darn important it really is. Several of my students shared with me that they had never gotten an award. That made me so sad, because while watching the award ceremony, I noticed that the students who received the most awards were those who parents are pretty active in the school, so I know those students are very supported. My students should get awards for surviving hellish upbringings and neighborhoods without being incarcerated (at present, anyway).

Sage also got “commended” on our state standardized test in writing. Although I’m not a fan of standardized tests, this meant a lot to me, because after seven years, Sage just got out of the special education program for speech/language. When he was struggling, he never got awards or recognition, and it seemed that he was overlooked because of his disability. I used to feel so angry about that.

The guy came to fix our washing machine, which had a broken lid switch. Greg was at home, and called me this afternoon to let me know how much it cost. It was $130 for 15 minutes work and an eighteen dollar part. I told my students about this as well. They need to give this guy some competition so that prices will go down a bit! For a moment, I wondered why I didn’t go into appliance repair.

Here’s the reason, and the reason I almost started crying again. School’s about out, and I was telling my students how much I enjoyed this year, and had really been enjoying this class in particular. I said, “I really like yall”!

Well, this one student I have, who has been challenging to say the very least, not to mention rude, disruptive and a host of other bad behaviors, said, “I like you too Miss.”

And that meant the whole world to me.

Seeing that kiddo (and others) learn manners and exhibit a desire to learn over the past few months has been amazing. He hasn’t been the only one. One of my juniors told me that she had been paying close attention to my World Geography class all year, and that she had never learned so much in a class in her entire life. Kids gave me email addresses, phone numbers and promises to stay in touch.

Unlike working with washing machines, with kiddos it’s really hard to let go sometimes.