I am at home taking care of a sick kiddo today. Cartoons are playing, tissues have been placed close at hand, and tea tree, eucalyptus, and rosemary essential oils are being diffused throughout the house. I should be using this unexpected extra time to catch up on household chores that have been neglected over the past week in the name of holiday parties, cookie exchanges, and gift gathering, but first I’m embracing the chance to sit for a few moments to write about why I have been absent for so long.
In August I embarked on a new adventure. I got a job. A full time job working as a para-educator for our local public school district. Rather than slipping into black spandex to spend my day in the “yoga classroom”, I’ve invested in a new business casual wardrobe to spend my days in 5th grade.
Days spent in 5th grade are pretty much the polar opposite of how I have spent the last 5 years of my professional life. It’s noisy, often hurried, and sometimes down right chaotic. It has been, on so many levels, a much bigger adjustment that I expected. I love that I am still working in an education based role, the difference being that 5th graders who have to go to school aren’t necessarily as eager to embrace learning as my yoga students who have made the choice to attend class. I come home at the end of the day energetically spent and, more often that I would like to admit, frustrated by the events of the day.
From a strictly parental view point, working in the environment in which my children spend their days has been a very eye opening experience. I now better understand the period of decompression that happens at our house at 3:30 each day. It has also helped me realize how important it is that we do our best to extend our girls’ opportunities for learning beyond what they are exposed to in school.
I’m am both in awe of our teachers for their commitment to creating fun, engaging environments for learning, and disgusted by how the education system in general (and unfortunately some parents) fails to support those teachers and the students they serve. A system, that as a tax paying, middle class American, I trust with the general education of my off-spring, and their peers, who I hope will one day help the world be a better, kinder place in which to live. With so much talk from law makers about how badly our education system needs a reform, I challenge those individuals who have not recently spent time in a classroom to spend a week volunteering as a classroom helper and then, with a clear conscious, push reform that ties teacher compensation to measurable performance through standardized testing.
I find myself thinking about how I’m practicing life a lot these days. There are days in which I have, admittedly, failed to extend compassion. Or patience. Or simple acceptance that no matter how much I try, there are just some factors in some children’s live that affect their interest in being engaged in their learning that I can not change. Those days break my heart. And make me appreciate both my own parents for making education a priority, and my children for embracing their own learning.
We are nearing the end of the first semester and 12 glorious days of winter break. I’m looking forward to the time to recharge and refocus for second semester. I can honestly say I don’t know what I will decide to do when my 2nd trip through 5th grade comes to a close. My family benefits greatly from the return of a second income to our budget. Plus the “office hours” allow me to be available to my daughters during the day that a 8-5 would not. At the same time I don’t necessarily feel professionally satisfied by my position. Yet I think it’s kinda like once you start to understand the benefits and awareness that come with practicing yoga…now that I’m in the system fighting the good fight, I don’t know that I can fully walk away knowing how much our children, and our teachers, need supportive allies.
peace
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