It has been a while

It has been a while since I last wrote. Part of the reason is going back to work. I had no idea it would be so hard. Every day lasts so long. I feel we have been working two months - it hasn't even been two weeks. My classroom this year has 10 students. They are some of the lowest functioning students I have ever had. I don't understand how a child can get to fourth grade when they cannot read all the letters of the alphabet. It boggles my mind how a child can get to fourth grade and not know how to add with regrouping, or identify coins. One child cannot identify his own name. You could ask most of the students in my class where they live - most of them won't be able to tell you. The expectation is that I will present general education curriculum to my students. The students in my class are expected to meet the same standards as their same age peers. My children will have to take the same standardized tests as their peers. It is just exhausting - mentally and physically exhausting, because I really try to teach what I am mandated to teach. By ten O'clock in the morning I am just wore out. The energy I must exert just to get through math and spelling is unbelievable. I write the number 234 on the board and ask the students to read the number - they can't. They might say; "two three four." They cannot read the number two hundred thirty four. The state standard requires 4th graders to identify numbers to one million, 5th grade to one billion - we are at tens! When the first quarter math assessment comes my students don't stand a chance - and that is on me. See, I want them to pass the test. I want them to look at the questions and know the answers. In reality they will look at the questions and not be able to read them. Actually calculating and choosing the correct answer is just a pipe dream. It is a dream I have though. It is my deepest desire to provide my students with the tools they need so they can feel successful. How in the world am I going to do that? I think about it all day and all night. Every day I seek another way to present the material in hopes something will click. Some days as I am teaching, I look around my classroom - staring back at me are these young children trying so very hard to "get it." They don't. They know they don't - this is wrong! What I should be teaching are life skills. Use of money, how to tell time, how to ask a question, how to move around the community - my children need to learn how to interact with others, how to give proper eye contact when speaking to an adult, what resources are available to them and their families. Yesterday one little girl in my class arrived at school very upset. She had not been able to complete her homework. She did not earn the homework star for the day. After a few hours she asked to speak with me in private - we went outside where she began to tell me why she could not do her homework. The night before her mother's boyfriend had beat up her mother and her baby brother. The little girl had to call 911. The police came but the boyfriend had left. The police told the mom to go to court and get a restraining order. The entire family stayed up all night fearing the boyfriend would come back. Was this little girl in any mental position to learn place value, proper nouns, and the regions of the United States? What could I do for her? It is exhausting. A daily heart break and daily frustration and a sense every night that I have failed. I am not enough. Not good enough, not skilled enough, not equipped enough. Twenty seven years of teaching special education is a long time. Not many people have made it this long. I am proud that I have. Every year it is more difficult. The children have more needs, greater gaps in their learning - they arrive at school with such need and I am not enough. I'll get up tomorrow and go at it again. One thing I am not is a quitter! I will give all I have, but I know sitting here tonight it won't be enough. At the place I am in my life; both professionally and personally I am not enough. I don't have enough of whatever it is I need to have. It is exhausting. OK, that is enough whining. Writing is cheaper than therapy. If anyone reads this pause a moment and say a prayer for the students in my class - If you could, sometime throughout your day, when you have a positive moment - think of the children in my class and think a good thought for them. Thanks.