Ending 2010

Here I am, planning my year end writing for 2010. I try to wrap up the year by writing in my kids' journals, and I try to reflect on the events of the year.  I don't normally try to analyze which of my actions were mistakes and which were successes because I think that is all relative in God's big scheme.  I do try to think on what needs to happen for the coming year based on the past.

Dos:

Spend more time with my kiddos......they need me to focus and be in the moments with them.

Love more, stress less.

Stay healthy...it makes a difference to EVERYthing else.  Can't bring my A-game when I'm weak.

Remember my purpose for everything.....don't get distracted by the speed bumps or my own need for kudos.

Tell everyone I love them.....when I do....and I usually do.

Have experiences with the people I love and get that stuff on film sometimes....hard lesson with an inside story.

Don't:

Let the negativity seep in. Idid that a lot this year.

Use any extra heartbeats being anxious for the small, pointless stuff.

Get frustrated when my efforts do not get immediate feedback.....be happy with the big feedback at the end.

I am here now for a purpose that I don't always have to understand.  The system (God's, not man's) has good stuff built in.  You only see God when you take the time to notices the good things.  When Sam says that he wants to just hug me, or Ashley tells me that the cruise was fun because we were there,  when Emily shines that giant heart of hers on everyone around her...those are things meant for me to notice.  My husband loves me and shows it in his ways...if we miss this stuff we miss the "God" stuff that is easy to see if we open our eyes.  We criticize the people in the Bible for the things they missed or forgot about who God is, but we all do it in our own ways 97 times a day.   Stop that. 

That's it.  I am going to be grateful to be 41 as I head into 2011.  I am grateful for a home, a family, and a job.  Oh yeah,  I love you.

The Dream takes a Nightmarish Detour

Here I sit with just 20 days left in 2010, wondering how it went by so fast and how much older I must look because of it.   I know this year is one I will learn from and grow from, but that isn't where I am yet. 

The school year started with a bang as a few old NW faculty and a WHOLE BUNCH of new ones attended a propaganda-filled convocation.  I don't say that to say that there was ill-intent in this event,  I just struggle with the any rah-rah event that is the result of carefully planned emotional manipulation of adults.  However,  for the most part, it was effective in rallying the troops of teachers to fight through a year promising to be wrought with both foreseen and unforeseen challenges.  

Those challenges have been real.  Oddly, for me, the painful challenges have not been from the new curriculum, the new lightening-paced coverage of the standards, the adding of complicated standards that included the ACT objectives,  the new grading system, the every 4.5 week, 90 -minute test in every core subject, the ENI consultants over some shoulders weekly, or the many challenges of managing a classroom of familiar kids for the third year (though this has been harder than I expected).  I am a born teacher (though far from a perfectly born teacher) and all those were just part of being a public school teacher.  I question the district's decision to change so many things at once and it was a challenging transition as a classroom teacher and a leader among my peers, but it was all manageable in my mind.  It added hours to my work load, but even that is starting to see some evening out.   My challenges have been with my clearly opposing viewpoint of my administrations relaxed methodology for management.   I love to teach, but on the classroom level, I know that teaching is too hard and a lot less fun if I don't manage well.  I wish that my own management was all that effected my teaching, but that isn't how it works.  WIthout spending hours on this, I can't function much longer under this style, even though I think I honestly like the people, even the MANY hired under the nepotism system. Ultimately, the biggest pain came form the realization that I can't be part of it anymore.  Without some true evaluation of how and why we do things, the kids will never see deep rewards from this building.  Even more sad,  I am not really an effective piece of this puzzle that is the NW community because I don't accept the process as it is, and I don't fit in.    Enough said. 

The bigger concern has been the challenges within our family while I work so many hours to survive the changes and the holes of my job.   Sam and Emily started a new school this year.  I think that has been an undeniably great choice for Sam, but not as great for Emily.  In one year they both went from a stable comfortable life overall (except for Sam's bullying stint at MA) to a new house, new church, and a new school.   Emily wanted to changed.  She really likes the process of learning at her new public school, but she misses her great friends both from MA and from her old church.   She is an emotional person, but she doesn't complain openly about her social situation.  However, when I ask her, she indicates that she is on the outside and that she is struggling everyday to find her place.   That is tough for her, because her place among friends has always been easily gained.  She is honest and kind.  She doesn't play games. And she is sincere and caring with others.  In the public system, navigating the social structure requires that she be more intentional and even work toward a position.  This is not who she is as a person and it is not healthy for her as a Christian.  I think she will work through that.   My sincere prayer is that she will not trade anything about herself to get there.  However, loneliness is a powerful motivator.    

Sam is finding a lot more comfort in his new system.  However, I can't get him to have a birthday party.  He "just wants a party with his family."  I never accused Sam of being normal,  not one of our kids would can fit under the world's "normal" banner, but this is confusing to me.  He has NEVER wanted a friend birthday party.  I did talk him into once.  I invited some of his friends for a swimming event and EVERYONE, including Sam, got the flu.   It was sad.  I think he has friends, but he is just so comfortable at home with us.  He really doesn't seek that social acceptance that even my girls did/do.  Neither Emily nor Ashley have had to work hard for friends, but fitting in or doing some of the expected things mattered to them.  Not so much for Sam it seems.  I don't want to be the mother who "takes it in to my own hands" and give him what he just "doesn't understand he needs."   He doesn't want it; I won't do it.  I do plan to invite a couple of his buddies over one at a time.  He seems open to that.  

The most heartbreaking part of our year is my father's illness.  Last year he had prostate cancer, the year before a heart attack, and before that back surgery.  He has been a trooper through all of it and overall he has been very proactive about taking care of himself.   A few months ago he started feeling just generally bad.  He went to several doctors and made a couple trips to the hospital for pain in his back and they kept shooing him off as an old man with old man problems.  However, he has some magnificent friends.  One day while my mother was at work, they took him the SMMC and put their collective, aging "foot down."  He is not leaving until you can definitively tell him what's causing all this pain.  To make a painful story short (but not less painful), he has pancreatic cancer.   Over that past three weeks since he found out, he has gone from a active older man to a weak, disoriented one.   As anyone who has experienced this knows,  it is a desperately sad and helpless feeling to watch someone you love so much make peace with the end of this life.   I haven't been so intimately involved in the process before so it has been the most frightening thing I have experienced to date.  This fear is of Satan I know.  John loves God and he seems to have accepted His will in this situation, but watching his life end this way makes me accept his mortality as well as my own.   I am a sap when I see these event occur in movies, or on the news or even to others I know, I cry and cry.  The first-hand experience is even worse than I expected.  There feels like so much injustice in it all, but it is the process of life.   Trying to be with him and my mother during this time while being overwhelmed at work as been overwhelming most days.  My family is exhausted.  I usually sleep like a baby, but I am not sleeping well.   I am experiencing some weird health things.  I think most of it is just being sad.  There is not a big word that makes any more sense to me.  I have only been this sad one other time and that was after my divorce from Scott.  That was like a death too, so I guess that is why.  If I am this sad now, how do people overcome the loss of their mate or their children?   It is a mystery to me.   I imagine they just never do get over the finality of never seeing, talking to, or holding that person again.   The fear of it all is a dark place, but I do believe that there is something beyond.  I don't hold that as a crutch, but as an undeniable truth.  As I write this and sort through my feelings,  watching my father (step-father) suffer this way has not created as big a fear of death itself, but of the process of dying.   He is dying the way he most feared and that breaks my heart.   I also think of my kids and the day they have to deal with this for Mike or me.  My heart already hurts for them.   However,  our existences are defined by this process of moving forward and being busy.  The expectations we've set and accepted doesn't even let us truly experience and share those last months, weeks and days with our loved ones.  It is too bad.  I think other cultures have better ideas. 

Again, this year will prove to be a growing experience from start to finish for all of us in the Cooper household.   We've intentionally created new memories as a family, which have also been part of the process.  All of us have a greater sense of the value of one another and those we are attached to outside our family unit.  Many of the students I have had for the last three years have shown me that they care about my sadness.  I am trying to be the grown up and be strong, but they know I've shed many tears.  Even in this narcissistic time in their  lives, they have taken time to show me they care.  That has been valuable for me and for them.   This life is about relationships.  What else even matters?   That is the first, deep lesson of this year.  The rest will come as we heal and adjust to the changes.

Week 3 Finished....First Holiday Weekend

The third week went off with minimal hitches.  It is weird to me that EVERY year I forget how hard the first quarter is.  Some resemblance to the amnesia related to giving birth.  I think this year  is going to be easier, but don't we think that every time we give birth. In many ways my personal year has been easier.  I am SO much better at repulsing the same mistakes of time management I make year after year.  Each year we (OCD teachers) make those choices to "try something new" that we just KNOW we will be able to manage.  I think maybe this year is the first one where I didn't come up with some completely unrealistic, ginormous change that I can't possibly manage while trying to do my best job with what I believe are the three pillars of urban education: relationship, management, and consistency (+ the necessary dose of personal accountability).  I am implementing two new things:  leveled reading repsonses based on the students individual comprehension levels and dialogue journals to discuss student writitng while acknowledging each student writing weakness.   I haven't started either yet.  I'm waiting for the class schedules to even out.  You wouldn't believe how long that takes every year (staying positive..so I can't explain).   I have an idea which of these two processes are going to be most difficult to maintain, but if I predict failure of one, that means I am not determined......and I AM determined to help my students to grow in both writing and comprehension.    I will just say that I know that responding to differentiated writing goals will be the most challenging, but, possibly the most valuable.   Reminder:  I can't trade my kids for the needs of others' kids.  (Just a necessary reminder, sorry!)  I hope I will begin to manage my time and choose my battles so well, that I can achieve my instructional goals this year w/o damage to those who had no say in my goals (my family.   Did I mention, I LOVE the intellectual challenge of teaching, but I love my children MORE.    God, please show me how to focus on the gift you gave me.  I am starting to buy into to the value of the gifts that came from you.....so show me how to use them the way you intended.  Take my will....show me YOUR reality....make it my reality.

Focusing on the POSITIVE

Second week down for 2010-2011, and we're focusing on the positive.  I am finally not behind.  I worked 12-15 hours a day for two weeks, but my grades are in and my planning is on track.  Mr. Goering, who teaches one block of reading, is completely unneedy, which is nice.  He doesn't know the content, but he knows instruction.  Real teachers can teach anything.  That must mean I am not a real teacher, because I don't think ANYONE would learn if I taught science.  Gratefully, Mr. Vasquez is doing that.  He's very upbeat ans seems to be confortable.  Chmids is teaching math. She has a very different perspective on things, but she is solid and I love her.  Although I MISS Bobbitt and Mesa so much it is painful somedays, it is nice to have a team that where everyone trying to be effective and collaborative.  I know as we move along, I will further appreciate this team and realize more deeply that Mesa and Bobbitt are serving better where they are. I still have Mr. Smith here and he reaffirms my belief in character and integrity everyday.  It will be nice to get together with the guys and not have our jobs in common.  I was a very different teacher.  Although they were always so supportive of my "giftings,"  there were days that it brought hard feelings (mostly unspoken, but not always).   In my heart, I believe we have a group of cools human beings in our building;  they just need solid leadership and TRUE vision, not just one that sounds good and looks impressive on the wall.  Northwest kids must not continue to suffer under the legacy of NW mismanagement.   We have a chance, I hope we take it.

On the home front,  I am trying to find my house.  My kids are tired from undersleeping every night.  I hope to get them back on track this week.  They tend to stay awake until I can read with them or tuck them in.  Sometimes, I find that pressure overwhelming when I got a million work things to do, but it would be more overwhelming if they stopped wanting me in their lives that way.  Emily has been riding with me.  That is fun.  I can't go as fast, but it is nice to have the company.  I bought her and Emily those super nice bikes, and they have hardly used them.  I am going to sneak over and steal Ashley's because it cost twice as much as mine and she doesn't use it.  I am going to ride the Tour de Shawnee tomorrow and the MS 150 in two more weeks.  After that, I hope Em and I will keep riding, but once the pressure of training is over, I tend to get lazy and put on my winter 15.   I would love to avoid that this year.  I take my shoes to school so I can run the stairs, but I never have time to do that.  I'll figure it out because it sure has been nice to get back to better shape.  It got a lot harder to do once I gave up youth ministries: no more mountain climbing or building houses in the 115 degree Mexican heat.  Those were the days. 

Well, I am off to meet with Susan Hodges about backward design.   I am sure I will learn more than I can give her.   Later.

Get Ready...Get Set...Go

That's about how quickly this year got off and running.  Unfortunately, the planning for 20 new staff members was not very thorough.  Lots of wholes in planning, communication and follow through have the building feeling very scattered and half-baked.  That is too bad since this school has this second chance at making a positive impact on the community through restructuring, the race to the top grant, and a 4.5 million dollar grant from some other source.  This should mean that we can get things done.  Unfortunately, this has not been an encouraging start.  Nepitism and maybe even a little ethnocentrism have replaced effective human resource choices and critical thinking.  These are people I truly like, but I can see the same process repeating itself in our middle school.  Favors and good intentions unwisely implemented are going to wear down the people who are here to make a difference.  I am devoted to my students.  This is the third year with them and I am love being here with them.  However, after 4 years of being here with some variation on ineffectiveness every year, I will move on when they are gone.  I don't have the energy nor the time to spend doing double duty for folks who can't do single duty.  It makes my efforts ineffective too. My family has been patient enough.  I am hoping God either makes huge glasses of lemonade out of human lemons or shows me what is His plan is for me here.  My growing bitterness will need lots of sugar, and the friends who used to be the sugar are no longer here.    I don't want to be an angry finger pointer, and I don't want to keep trying to fill in the holes of others' shortcomings.  It steals from my efforts to grow through some of my own shortcomings, maybe even adds to the list.  I go home every night wondering how many times I misrepresented Christ with my growing frustration.  

So those are the ravings of a already frustrated urban teacher, who loves kids and distrusts most adults.   That isn't who I was when I came into this job.  As frustrated as I am with people, I can only blame myself for letting it get to me.  My biggest goal for this year has to be to return to the much more positive person I think I was when I started this gig.  If I can't do that...... well, I don't know what's next.  It has turned into a spiritual battle.  I am sorry about that. 

Em and Sam started a new school.  They seem to be doing well, but this is a hard time for Emily to enter an entirely new environment.  It is hard to be new when you are starting the adolescent journey to define yourself.  It is much easier to feel safe in your identity in Christ when you attend a Christian school.  Sam, on the other hand, seems to breathe easier.  He doesn't complain about going to school, and he can already name a few friends.  I just need to get some of their friends over to the house.  I want them to feel a part of their new community and comfortable just being themselves.  I know God has a plan for my kids.  I know He loves them more than I do.  God has always been faithful, from my perspective, to fill in the holes of my shortcomings.  Look at Ashley.  She had every reason to be a mess, and she's fabulous.  That wasn't because of me. 

After all this talk of an exhausting career and desperate parenting, I must say, that I am starting the Urban Leadership Ed.S program at UMKC in Janaury.  I even find it hard to believe that I am doing that while teaching and when my kids most need me.  However, one of the additional legacies of working in my school is the thousands of dollars of my family's money that I spent in my classroom to supplement what the school/district did not provide.  Now, I need to fix the bind I put my family in.  I can only do that with education because we haven't gotten a raise for year in the district for two years, and I don't forsee that changing soon.  Mike's options for making more money are limited in a city that is saturated with I.T. people looking for jobs.  It should be interesting if not useful for my particular career goals.


In future posts, I will be more positive and get some good pics up of the kids.  They both grew so much this summer.  We went on a couple of trips, and we are going on a cruise in November.  I am going to put my family in the place they deserve in my life, and I am going to enjoy it.  NO MORE WHINING.

Emily at Northwest

Emily joined my Summer Enrichment group this summer.  She participated in all the technical projects and some of the readers' theatre work.  She also went with us on our last two field trips:  Nelson Atkins and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.  I took both Sam and Emily back to see all of both museums on Friday.  I was surprised by how attentive both kids were.  We had a really great time.  Both of them are very curious and interested in new things.  I truly enjoy my summers with them.  I hope next year we get more time together.  As it looks right now, we will get about 25 days together before I go back for a retreat at the end of July.  I am keeping myself open to the needs of the many new teachers at NW this year, but at the same time I do not want to forget that my babies are going to a new school, a public school for the first time.  They will be my priority this year.   They were my first assignment from God, and I can't forget that.  It would seem that would be impossible to forget, but when you have 80+ kids counting on you, it is easy to make excuses for reassigning priorities.  As the father says in Cheaper By the Dozen,  if I fail raising my kids, nothing else will matter much. 

Last Week of Summer School..Not Uneventful

We were visiting grandma and grandpa last Saturday.  My cousin was visiting with his three sons.  The boys were having a great time, until Sam slipped and smacked his knee on a rock.  I wouldn't have known about it so quickly except a crying Emily came running up saying that "there's a lot of blood."  I didn't even hear anything from Sam because it took him a bit to let it absorb before he lost his mind.  The process was stressful for his overactive imagination, but he toughed it out and thought the stitches looked cool in the end.