M&M's

Last Thursday was a busy day for room 111 at Brunson-Lee. We started our day after breakfast with an award assembly in the cafeteria/gym. Awards went out for writing, spelling, math, reading, art  and perfect attendance. We cleaned house. I wish we could have given awards for PE & most improved. CJ would have probably been the recipient for both.

 After the assembly, a mother came by the room to drop this off for me with a hug and a thank you. One of the best notes I've ever received.

At then end of the day, three teachers, including myself, got pied in the face because our three classes finished a math program with 100% during the year. The pie was whip cream and it stung my eyes and clung to my lashes long after I thought I had washed it away. I chose Scotty McFly-Away to throw the pie and after he did, I wiped some off my face and rubbed it in his. Of course, some got up his nose and he was walking around with his head tilted WAY back telling everyone he couldn't breath. Lol. 

Aaaaaaand then after school, the staff surprised Megan and Mario with a little thank you/going-away celebration. Sitting in the wooden chair that afternoon that I had sat in so many different times under a variety of circumstances felt different. Everything felt so final. Listening to a slideshow of all of the staff members talking about Megan and Mario and the memories each had with the two of them threw me back into a flashback of the last three years. When I got the phone call from BL's secretary, Mirtha, in Wisconsin asking if I could come in for an interview the next day. Going in for my interview with my resume in one hand and a Wisconsin Badger coffee cup bribe in the other (I still maintain that my hiring was based on that cup and that the academic coach, Megan, who sat in on my interview is also from Wisconsin). Getting handed my first class (ELD) and then being pulled in right before fall break to be told that due to staffing changes I'd be getting a totally different class (gifted). My world spun that year. My faith in myself was tested. I survived. Mostly due to the family/coaching/mentoring that surrounded me. Second year rolled around all too quickly, and I sort of felt like I knew what I was doing. A week in to my new class and I found out how wrong I was. Same classroom, whole different set of challenges. I had my first student get physical with me and get kicked out to a behavioral school. We had a staff member pass away in a car accident and it rocked our family. It was not until this year that I finally felt like I could hack it at B-L and breathe easy (is there such a thing in education?). This year presented its own set of challenges with several difficult students coming in from second grade. I cried when I got my class list. But, we made it. Together.

 

...Below is an e-mail Megan sent out after our staff send-off.

 

"Hello, all!

 

I wanted to thank you all for your grace the other day when I was relegated to 'Pre-Emergent' by my emotions.  With any other group of people, I would have been embarrassed that I had made myself so vulnerable.  With all of you, my family, I was only disappointed that I was prevented from expressing myself.  So here I go.

 

When I think back on my last 6 years here, I am confronted by one overwhelming true thing:  this school, and the people in it, and the children flowing through it, and the families enveloping it, saved me.  You all spoke of the things I had done for you, or had helped you discover, or had made you learn.  What you should know is that a coach, at best, is like a moon:  we can only reflect that light that exists.  And you, Brunson-Lee, were bright enough for both of us.

 

Crying in the media center on Wednesday, I was reminded of some other times I have laughed and cried with you all.  Once, my third year teaching, I was crying in my room with the door shut because of a fight I’d had with Kyley.  Ben Groom peeked in, left, drove to Safeway, bought me a chocolate éclair, and had a student bring it in with a note that said, “You looked like you need this.”  And to me, that’s what Brunson-Lee is about.  All of your love, teaching, compassion, companionship, and of course, your discipline procedures:  You, friend, look like you need this.  Let me give it to you.

Thank you for your celebration on Wednesday, for your gifts, for the awards assembly, and of course kinder graduation.  If someone had told me Wednesday morning that I had 48 hours to live, I can’t think of a thing that I’d do differently.  That, to me, is happiness.

 

There is a parable about two men  going on a journey to a new place.  While they are traveling, they meet someone coming from the place they are going to.  The two men stop him and asked how the people were in the town.  He asks the first man, 'How were the people in the town that you left?'  The first man says, 'Oh, they’re terrible.  They are lazy, they complain, and they aren’t good people.'  The man said, 'So, too, are the people in this place.'  He asks the second man the same question.  The second man said, 'Oh, you would love the people there.  They are kind, and generous, and hard-working.  I’m sad to leave.'  The man said, 'So, too, are the people in this place.'

 

If the people at my new school are anything like the people in this place that I am leaving, then I will be fortunate indeed. All my love to all of you – I look forward to hearing of your new adventures."