When I think about what I need to accomplish at my school before the year's end, I get immensely overwhelmed; in fact, lately I've been trying to avoid the subject. I haven't yet begun on the yearbook that I agreed to take over. I haven't organized the Beta Club ceremony, nor have I had the time to call a meeting of its current members. The 7th Grade Writing Assessment is 17 school days from now and tryouts for the track team begin Monday... so this weekend will be spent organizing materials for that because I'm the head coach... but oh wait, those basketball teams for which I'm the assistant coach have their final games on Saturday. Did I mention the Ed Law midterm that I should be studying for or the MTC portfolio that has been pushed beyond the back burner?
What about those dozen students who are currently failing my class? Those students whose parents won't return my calls. The ones who fail to understand how important it is that they turn in their projects - because a late grade is better than a zero. Before I even begin to think about what I want to accomplish on a personal level, I need to get past, or at least compartmentalize all of those other things.
But when I actually do get a spare moment to think about it, to think about the fact that my time here is almost through, the "to do list" rolls out with ease. I want to build better relationships with all of my students. I want their faces to forever be imprinted in my memory. I want to spark a passion for writing in some of those students who I know have a gift, and I want to show my most jaded children that their cynicism is crippling them. I want to get M to sit still for ten minutes straight and convince S that it's cool to be smart. I don't really care about the test scores, but I do care that my students move to the eighth grade with proficiency and feel confident that they can continue to improve.
I know that all sounds incredibly cliche, but it's the truth. Those are the things that really consume my daily thoughts. Those are the things I think about when I'm choosing to avoid the pressure of everything else.
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