I’m writing this on Friday afternoon, the day after parent-teacher conferences, which means I’m writing this on a Friday following an 11-hour workday most of which involved talking to people, which means I’m writing this when I am really tired.
I’m writing this on the second day of Ramadan which is not a part of my religious tradition but is a part of many of my students’ religious tradition which means many of them are fasting and this is only the second day and they say the beginning is the hardest which means I’m writing this on a day when my students were really tired.
I’m writing this on a Friday afternoon, the day after parent-teacher conferences, the second day of Ramadan and the end of the first week back from March Break, a week which has been gloomily gray and chilly. Snow is predicted for tomorrow. We are all tired.
And yet…
Yesterday, a grade 9 student wore a frog headband during the parent-teacher(-student) interview, so today I shared thirty translations of Basho’s frog haiku and then we wrote haikus even though not everyone knew what a syllable was and lots of students shared and it was pretty great.
Yesterday, the grade 12 students mostly didn’t write at all during the time I’d set aside for them to work on the assignment due Monday, so today I gave very specific instructions and used a five minute countdown timer with very enthusiastic music and – guess what? – they all wrote through several rounds and many left class with 200ish words done and it was pretty great.
And then, the reading class finished our decoding work early and we switched to word games and somehow they asked for a spelling bee even though they are, frankly, terrible spellers, and they all stood at the whiteboard trying to spell words like degenerate and altruism and wheelwright and then, when I said, “Oh, this one is waaay too hard, I’ll skip it,” the kids insisted that they wanted to try it and kept insisting even after I admitted that I didn’t even know it and then, shocking everyone, even her, Sarah spelled glaucescent correctly just before the bell rang and it was glorious.
And now it’s the weekend and we’re all tired, but you know what? I think we’re going to be ok.
Persistence and Pedagogy 
Clouds and silver linings are both part of life as simply captured in your snapshot slice. And so are dictionaries, one of which I’m about to go use to look up ‘glaucescent.’
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It’s a big word for something vaguely gross. Made the kids like it even more. 😆
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Oh,lovely. I am so very glad Friday afternoon finds you here. I’m so glad there was light in the darkness.
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Sounds like my Thursday and Friday. Someone decided to sponsor our school so each primary student got two tickets to the OHL game last night – one for them and one for an adult. Nobody was in bed before 9:30, and we had two full days of indoor recess even though today was a gorgeous sunny day! One of the students told me she was sad because she just wanted some fresh air. 🙂 But we made it through and the ice is nearly melted and we’re only expecting to get 20cm of snow tomorrow. :p
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The repetition, the juxtaposition of tired, yet powerful moments, is really amazing. It means that through this exhaustion there is hope. It made my day.
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Tired…but you decided that today still mattered and look at all the good and glorious things that happened! That’s a choice. Enjoy the weekend my friend! You e earned it.
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Connection number one: grey week here as well (though no snow).
Connection number two: some very tired Ramadan fasters (in fifth grade, no less)
Connection number three: some small victories on Thursday evening and Friday made the tiredness tolerable
Connection number four: we are using some very fancy glaucous lights in our Little Mermaid production, so I guess our auditorium is glaucescent.
I really liked the “I’m writing this…” beat. It had the feeling of the last mile of a marathon (which I’ve never run) week, where you were willing yourself toward the finish line…but there was accomplishment and glory in the finishing.
Finally, have you ever played the dictionary game with your class? I used to play it in my first 2 or 3 years teaching, and when I retired, one of my students (now in her 40s) remembered one of the words we used. Your determined spellers might really like it. If you don’t know it, I can send you the rules…no supplies needed except a dictionary and some index cards.
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Just a beautifully written slice capturing the reality and context in which we work and write and finding so much grace and so many little moments of joy and wonder in the classroom. I loved reading this. (I don’t think I could have managed glaucescent at all, so kudos to Sarah!)
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Right? What sort of word is that? I had to double-check it while I wrote it in the post!
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