Part of Slice of Life by Two Writing Teachers March Slice a Day Challenge!
I’m slicing every day this month. Thanks for stopping by. 🙂

 

Mini Slices of a Mega Day

My alarm was set for 5:00. But I wake up with a start at 4:45.

My dreams were just as busy as my night had been, and my day is about to be. This week, I can’t even get a little rest time when I sleep, I guess.

I head downstairs, poor my coffee and I’m in front of the same google docs, notebooks, post it notes and books that I was working on before I went to bed 5 hours ago.

**

I’m in front of 4 kids and 25 interns, a few more teachers, and look, there’s the Media and Communications Manager with his camera too. Teaching always has an audience, but this is an audience.

I have the lesson plan, and I’ve already explained to everyone that learning is messy, that learning labs are vulnerable places. But now I have to actually be vulnerable and messy. 

I look up to welcome the kids and I zoom in on them.  They are nervous too, being in front of all these people.

“This is weird, right?” I say and then we begin and I forget (mostly) about all the other grown ups.

**

We are back from the classroom, the interns are reflecting on the lab they just participated in. I know that interns are good at reflecting, but I wonder what they will have to say.

As we write in our journals, I hear the kids in the hallway. I think the melody of kids moving around a hallway is comforting.

We open up the discussion.
“The kids were sharing and talking…they were so thankful to have us there…” 
“You don’t know what you can do until you do it…” 
“Refreshing to do a mini lesson with different kids…” 
” I was being vulnerable with the students…” 
“I had the lesson plan, but it’s not a script. I don’t have to say everything from the plan…” 
“This was a confidence booster…” 
“We learn so much from our peers…” 

By the time the interns are talking about the power of co-teaching and how wonderful it was to share the teaching point with kids, my paper is full of their comments, and I am feeling emotional about these new educators about to graduate and impact the lives of children in their own classrooms.

***

I’m in front of another 4 kids, this time I’m teaching 2 and then turning the lesson over to an intern who will mirror my lesson for her 2 kids.  These kids are fourth graders, and they had to walk into a room full of about 35 adults, take a seat and get a strategy lesson on vocabulary. I mean, could I have done that when I was 10? I don’t know.

They give each other high fives when I ask them to read their books, and one looks at me slyly and says, “Are we teaching teachers?”

“You are teaching teachers!” I say. “We are all learning something today!”

I look up and notice my friend is videotaping me with her phone.

I guess I forgot to tell her I didn’t want to be filmed. Oh well!

“You are in the last part of 4th grade, can you believe it?” I say.

Before I can go on to tell them that this means they are reading so many books, and the more books your read, the more times you might come to a word you don’t know, one boy interrupts.

“No we aren’t!” he says. “We have 60 days left.”

***

I’m exhausted. But I have to run to the grocery store (before I go home, and do my laundry and pack for Teacher’s College, and make dinner, and record my #findthejoy video and slice.)

I pull into a parking spot, and get out of the car. I’m so excited that it’s sunny and warm! I don’t even need my jacket! I grab my keys and my phone and head in to the store. I walk in to the store, happy to not be loaded down by winter accouterments.

I’m almost done when I realize that my purse is still in the van.

***

I’m home, about to start dinner. We are trying to eat really healthy this week. After all, it’s almost spring and we just had spring break full of car snacks and too much sitting. Even my 12 year old is packing salads and tofu for lunch.

The girls from next door are on my porch,  with the girl scout cookies we ordered last month.

“Thank you!” I say, and I joke. “Maybe this can be my dinner!”

I take the cookies inside and the family goes wild.

“Why did you buy 2 boxes of thin mints?”

“How are we not going to eat these?”

“Can I just have one?”

“This is going to be really hard.”

We put the cookies in the chest freezer, and I think we’ve already forgotten about them.

***