This came in my email a couple of days ago. I thought it appropriate at this time of year when most teachers are going the extra 3 miles for kids who need, especially those who can't or are afraid to speak up for themselves. Here at my school we arranged to help 11 families in the community through food drives and staff generosity. Our guidance teacher and SIW (student intervention worker - like a TA but for the "behaviour issues" rather than the academic concerns) delivered boxes of food and toys to 6 of those families today, and found it to be an experience that was equally rewarding and saddening.
I'm getting off the soapbox now. It's just helpful to take a step back from our concerns of lacking whatever we feel we may be lacking, and taking a good look around at what we have, which I have to think for most of us, is an incredible amount. I know I complain and often feel pressure of not enough, be it money, time, whatever, but I also know that I have plenty, and that if I was lacking in anything necessary, I have people who would line up to help me.
This article isn't really as depressing as my lead in! I promise I'll post a cheerier something before Christmas!
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This is a copy of a “Talkback” email read by Terry Seguay on CBC Information Morning on November 30. The title is “...and we teach”.
“My name is Gail Fellows-DeGrace and I teach Kindergarten and Music at Donald Fraser Elementary School in Plaster Rock. I heard the CBC piece about the Salisbury school club organized to help students learn to tie sneakers. Many teachers probably had my reaction, “that’s a great idea”, while other listeners reflected that it’s a sad state when schools have to do so many of the things parents used to. But, it’s all in a day’s work for the elementary teachers that I have had the privilege to meet and work with across our province.
We bandage knees, pull out teeth, go home with vomit stained pants, wipe noses and the occasional rear end, administer antibiotics, carry anaphylactic needles, pick nits, squish live lice, peel diarrhea-stained underwear off kids too sick to take care of themselves, cover them up on a sick bed because there is no sitter ...and we teach.
We make sandwiches for those with empty lunch boxes, drive other people’s children to and from activities, scrounge for countless sneakers ,snowsuits and boots for those without , make sure children in need will have food for this holiday season ...and we teach.
We laugh with children because their innocence is contagious, we shout inside when a child has a long- awaited success; we counsel the fearful, the broken, the angry and the bruised, weep with children for their sorrow and often fear about their tomorrows, we beg social services to step in when we know they cannot; our hearts break many, many times ...and we teach.
Our regular every day school situations often demand that we take on duties of the school nurse, the psychologist, the social worker and the speech therapist; we organize clubs for those who never do homework, coach intramurals to encourage children to be active; introduce the concepts of rules, routines and manners to those who are unruly ...and we teach.
We do whatever the situation demands each day, we do it as well as we can because we care enough to hope we make a difference ...and... we also teach children how to tie their shoelaces.
Gail Fellows-DeGrace, November 30, 2007
Friday, December 21
Wednesday, December 19
only one small child had to be carried off the stage after vomiting.
We had our Christmas concert today. It went pretty well, until the little tiny kindergarten kids in their adorable santa hats went on for performance #2. I don't even know what they were singing, because let's be honest, they're just SO CUTE it doesn't matter. I think they sang something and then read their letters to santa. They were all like "Dear Santa, I love you, bring me presents." Or some variation on that theme. And one poor girl, not, interestingly, the grade 2 girl who had been feeling queasy all afternoon, but another, random girl, vomited on the stage, which caused an impromptu intermission as we searched for a custodian. He said it's the 4th mess (of that kind, I'm sure he's cleaned up lots of other messes this week) that he's had in the last 2 days. love this time of year!
Speaking of vomit...I was super disgustingly sick Thursday night and Friday. I was feeling really gross, and didn't feel up to taking the boy to swimming. I was feeling really bad about that, but as I sat in the bathroom clutching the garbage can later that evening, I felt good about my decision not to go swimming. I was mostly better by the next afternoon, but I did manage to infect first my son, then my parents, bless them, who had come for a visit this past weekend, then my husband. He was feeling pretty cocky about not having been sick, and didn't get it as bad as the rest of us, but he ended up taking the day off yesterday and was all fevery and stuff, so I felt like karma had done its job.
I'm enjoying the writers' strike, because I now get to watch shows that I sort of wanted to watch but didn't, as I already watch too much tv. Now that all my regulars are repeats, I can watch repeats of other shows. See? It's a win win. A lot of shows are promising to be back in January, and I don't know how. Maybe for like, 2 weeks, until they too run out of new stuff, but at least it will be new for then.
Christmas will be over in a week. That's scary. The boy is done, the man gets one more small thing, my parents are done, my sister gets something else small. Not too bad. Not sure when I'll be getting any of those things, but that's for later to worry about.
I have to do dishes and I don't want to. But I must. sigh.
Speaking of vomit...I was super disgustingly sick Thursday night and Friday. I was feeling really gross, and didn't feel up to taking the boy to swimming. I was feeling really bad about that, but as I sat in the bathroom clutching the garbage can later that evening, I felt good about my decision not to go swimming. I was mostly better by the next afternoon, but I did manage to infect first my son, then my parents, bless them, who had come for a visit this past weekend, then my husband. He was feeling pretty cocky about not having been sick, and didn't get it as bad as the rest of us, but he ended up taking the day off yesterday and was all fevery and stuff, so I felt like karma had done its job.
I'm enjoying the writers' strike, because I now get to watch shows that I sort of wanted to watch but didn't, as I already watch too much tv. Now that all my regulars are repeats, I can watch repeats of other shows. See? It's a win win. A lot of shows are promising to be back in January, and I don't know how. Maybe for like, 2 weeks, until they too run out of new stuff, but at least it will be new for then.
Christmas will be over in a week. That's scary. The boy is done, the man gets one more small thing, my parents are done, my sister gets something else small. Not too bad. Not sure when I'll be getting any of those things, but that's for later to worry about.
I have to do dishes and I don't want to. But I must. sigh.
Friday, December 7
it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas
and I have to say, I was slightly horrified on Tuesday when I realised that Christmas eve was a mere 3 weeks away. I'm not exactly finished. I'm having a hard time with my family. The man is easy enough I suppose, and the boy is easy, but the family I was born into, not so easy. Not so helpful with the ideas and such. So, they're all going to get something, but I'm not sure yet what it will be. The man is in charge (theoretically) of shopping for his family, so I (supposedly) do not have to worry about that.
We did have a snow day on Tuesday though, as did most of the province, and perhaps some others. I had a terrible sleep though, and not because I was SO EXCITED to have the potential day off, but because the man is away, and I am not really supposed to be shoveling massive amounts of snow in my, you know, delicate condition. I had this fear that the snow would stop overnight, they'd get it all cleaned up, and there would be school. And I'd have to call in, what, pregnant? That would be lame. As it was, I did manage to sweet talk somebody into clearing out most of my driveway, but we're going to have to work out a more reliable solution if the man is going to be away regularly. I didn't go anywhere that day, except outside a few times with the boy, who had a great time walking and falling down and getting stuck in the foot and a half or so of snow and then yelling "Hawp! Hawp mum! Guck!" We also had a good time with him jumping off his sand and water play table that is covered in snow and so now is basically just a table to jump off of. I took some really cute pictures of him airborne and smiling, I'll put them up on his site eventually. We're supposed to go get professional type pictures done tomorrow morning, but apparently the boy got into an altercation with some toys on Wednesday morning and has some scratches on his face. I have to wait and see about that, because Superstore doesn't retouch their photos, and I am not paying money to have photos of my boy all marked up, nor would I be keen to send those photos out to friends and family. A bit annoyed about the whole thing really, not because it happened, because that happens, but because it was not really explained to me fully and now I may have to cancel the picture appointment last minute, which is annoying for me and for them I imagine, and there will be no possibility of rescheduling for before Christmas.
I should really do some work now. Oh, we went to see Enchanted, and it was actually really funny. Much better than I had expected. I do have the song from it in my head though, and that's pretty annoying.
We did have a snow day on Tuesday though, as did most of the province, and perhaps some others. I had a terrible sleep though, and not because I was SO EXCITED to have the potential day off, but because the man is away, and I am not really supposed to be shoveling massive amounts of snow in my, you know, delicate condition. I had this fear that the snow would stop overnight, they'd get it all cleaned up, and there would be school. And I'd have to call in, what, pregnant? That would be lame. As it was, I did manage to sweet talk somebody into clearing out most of my driveway, but we're going to have to work out a more reliable solution if the man is going to be away regularly. I didn't go anywhere that day, except outside a few times with the boy, who had a great time walking and falling down and getting stuck in the foot and a half or so of snow and then yelling "Hawp! Hawp mum! Guck!" We also had a good time with him jumping off his sand and water play table that is covered in snow and so now is basically just a table to jump off of. I took some really cute pictures of him airborne and smiling, I'll put them up on his site eventually. We're supposed to go get professional type pictures done tomorrow morning, but apparently the boy got into an altercation with some toys on Wednesday morning and has some scratches on his face. I have to wait and see about that, because Superstore doesn't retouch their photos, and I am not paying money to have photos of my boy all marked up, nor would I be keen to send those photos out to friends and family. A bit annoyed about the whole thing really, not because it happened, because that happens, but because it was not really explained to me fully and now I may have to cancel the picture appointment last minute, which is annoying for me and for them I imagine, and there will be no possibility of rescheduling for before Christmas.
I should really do some work now. Oh, we went to see Enchanted, and it was actually really funny. Much better than I had expected. I do have the song from it in my head though, and that's pretty annoying.
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