SOL Day 3: The Hats I Wear

In the course of a day, I wear many hats. I am a wife, a mother, a teacher. I'm also a counselor, a nurse, a friend, a daughter, a sister. You get the idea. You are probably nodding your head thinking, "Yep, me too." It's those times when my hats overlap and both try to settle on my head at the same time that I'm reflecting on in today's Slice of Life post.

This afternoon, I found myself wearing both the mom and teacher hats simultaneously. I'm sure many of you have found yourselves faced with the same situation on a regular basis. My middle son Ben told me about a new incident with a boy in his class that he has been butting heads with recently. We had a discussion last week about this boy, in which I found out that Ben was not completely innocent in their conflict. It was really hard for me to not be the mom who just supports her kid 100%. But, being the teacher I am, I had to dig deeper to get to the heart of the story. This led me to the uncomfortable truth that he was partly to blame. It was really hard breaking that to him.

Today, he tells me of another incident in which the kid was verbally taunting him. I asked if he sought help from the teacher and he said that he did. When I asked what the result was, he said that the teacher said, "Just try to ignore him." Makes sense. It's what I often find myself telling my own students when they are being irritated by a classmate. "Did she say anything to the other student about leaving you alone?", I asked Ben. "No," was his response. The outrage of the mom in me towards the teacher who did nothing to hold the other child accountable warred with the teacher in me who wondered what she could have done if she didn't witness it. Of course, I know that as a teacher I would have at least talked with the other student to find out his side. And she very well may have done that without Ben being aware of it.

The thing that I find most challenging in my situation is that I am not only in a different school building from my children, but I'm in another district altogether. If we were in the same building, I could easily grab her at the end of the day and talk about what happened. I would probably know something about this other kid and his history of behavior. But, in this case, I'm just another parent. It really doesn't matter that I'm a teacher too. I want so badly to send an email to the teacher demanding to know what she is going to do about the situation. However, I have to think about being on the receiving end of that too. I think about my sensitive boy and how this is making him feel. I think about how hard it is to stand up for yourself yet not wanting to be labeled a "tattle tale" for it. 

For the most part, I think I'm really lucky to be able to wear both hats when it comes to helping my boys through schooling issues. Sometimes having the teacher perspective makes it just a little bit harder to be a mom.

SOL Day 2: Procrastination

I am a procrastinator. There. I said it. I've known for quite some time that I am a master procrastinator. People tell me all the time how impressed they are with how organized I am. But, I'll let you in on a little secret. Many of my organizational systems were born out of the procrastination of a task I just did not feel like doing. I'm great at getting things set up, but when it comes to putting them into practice, something always seems to come up. Or needs tweaking.

I love my weekends. Live for them, in fact. I get so wrapped up in embracing the arrival of my weekend, I always put off doing any "real" work until later in the weekend. Before I know it, I have errands to run, shopping to do, time to spend with my kids, laundry to do, television shows to watch, napping to catch up on, and tweets and blog posts to read. This weekend, I received notification that the book I've been dying to read is finally available for me to download. I haven't been able to put it down, in spite of the fact that I only have until Tuesday to complete my progress reports. Inevitably, I will be in a panic, staying up well past reasonable hours, to finish before the deadline.

Unfortunately, my knowledge of this tendency does nothing to change the fact that I will probably always find something more interesting to do than what it is I need to do. I guess the most important thing is that things always get done, they just aren't without a little bit of stress and gnashing of teeth in the meantime. Of course, after procrastinating a little on FaceBook this weekend, I know I'm not alone in my habits. I do wish I could do something about it. Maybe tomorrow.

30 Day Slice of Life Writing Challenge - Day 1

As often happens, I've been convinced to resurrect my blog and participate in another blogging challenge by my good friends and colleagues Cathy Mere from Reflect and Refine and Deb Frazier from Primary Perspective. They introduced me to the Slice of Life 30-Day Writing Challenge from Two Writing Teachers. So, for each day of March, I will be writing a post on my blog. I'm not sure what form this will take, but I'm accepting the challenge. Although this blog was established as a professional platform, so much of my life is made up of my role as a mother as well as a teacher, I know that more than a couple of posts will be slices of my personal life as well.


In addition to accepting this challenge for myself, I have also posed this challenge to my class of first graders.
They will have the option to write something in their Writer's Notebook, during Writer's Workshop, or on their Kidblog blogs. My hopes for this experience is to inspire my students to write for their own enjoyment as well as to be more comfortable in telling their own stories.


My Slice of Life - Day 1

For the last week or more, much of my time has been focused on the activities of my oldest son, Liam. This week, Liam had three nights of performances for his Middle School play. He was one of the narrators, was in all but 3 scenes, and was amazing! He really has a talent for performing. I was really impressed with his ability to memorize all of his lines and deliver them with great comedic timing and expression.

No sooner had he finished the final performance, than it was time for his first district Science Fair. He and his friend researched the best method for cooling cans of soda. Their presentation went well and they received an Excellent rating. In fact, they were only 3 points from receiving a Superior rating.

For my first Slice of Life, you get a glimpse into my pride as a mother.