I found a letter I wrote to myself on August 11, 2012-The week before school started. I cried reading it. I hope I've done well by my students. Just what I said before I even knew my students remains the same-they're worth it.
Dear Melissa,
You're about to be a legit teacher! Congratulations! Today is your last Saturday before the new school year begins. I anticipate a very busy, yet fulfilling year for you.
I hope you begin to say all your students names correctly. I hope every student feels cared for, appreciated and respected while in your class.
I hope you don't embarrass yourself when it comes to Math and Science. It's entirely possible.
I hope you develop good friendships with your colleagues. I hope you'll be a valuable member of the fourth grade team and to the staff at Fairview.
I hope you blow all the evaluations out of the park. I hope you integrate technology well.
Most of all, I hope you love your students. I hope you'll love them so much it'll hurt to see them struggling. I hope you'll love them so much you'll make every effort to get to know them and their families. I hope you'll love them so much you'll give 100 percent every day.
Remember, even when they're loud, when they don't follow directions, when they get on your nerves, when they don't turn assignments in, when their parents give you a hard time, when they break an expectation, when they don't meet their goals-Remember to love them. Never lose hope for them. Remember they are the future. Love them. Care for them. Respect them. Give them your all-because they're worth it.
May God bless your year,
Melissa
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Sunday, March 3, 2013
To This Day
I watched this video this morning and it got me to thinking about the things I have carried to this day.
Seventh grade.
2001.
12 years and half my life ago
I was in art class. In my school P.E. was really basketball practice and if you didn't want to be on the team you took art with the Jr. High boys and the few other girls whose athletic ability was minimal.
I tried playing basketball in grade school. During a tournament we had a substitute coach who believed everyone deserved playing time so he let me in after half time. The moment someone passed me the ball, even though we were on the wrong side of the court, I tossed it to the basket and heard the screams "AIR BALL!" Lucky, though. If I would have made it, it would have been a point for the other team. I liked the other regular coach better. I would rather be cheering from the bench.
Moving on.
On the first day of art class I took a seat at the middle of a long table. Groups of boys formed around me. It was innately clear, in the beginning at least, I was not part of the group. And being quite shy, it took awhile for me to converse with the popular eighth grade boys surrounding me. Yet after several months I believed I had infiltrated the pack and now I was considered a friend.
Until one day. This one day I remember to this day.
It's one of my most vivid memories of that year, with the only trumping memory being that of the 9/11 attacks.
I came in to art and sat at my normal seat. The rest of the class was coming in and on a whim, it seemed, the leader of the pack sat at a different table. This was odd. He started motioning at his friends to come, and sit with him. They followed. I looked around with expression of confusion on my face. I slowly got up, gathered my things, and moved to this new table. Everyone looked at me. The leader of the pack gave me a look of disdain. He got up, and while looking at me said "We can have our table back, now." And the entire group left the table and sat at their normal seats. The art teacher looked at me and laughed.
I sat there with my back to them, working furiously on my art project, silently yelling at myself, "Do. Not. Cry."
This one day I discovered that what I thought was a budding friendship all this time was simply tolerance. A tolerance they can choose to revoke at a moments notice.
It was the lack of character and kindness of Jr. High boys that gave me a complex.
When I went to a new school in the tenth grade, I refused to eat in the cafeteria for days. In my eyes it was a crowded room filled circle shaped tables that were already full with cliques who despised uninvited guests.
To this day when I walk into a crowded room my chest is filled with anxiety.
I find it difficult to trust people.
I despise shallow friendships.
All because some Jr. High boys that lacked integrity and kindness told me, not with words, but with actions
you're pathetic.
you're not likable.
you're not interesting.
and mostly, you're not welcome.
But Today this is what I will say:
They
Were
Wrong.
Friday, January 11, 2013
On Single Wide Trailers and Ted E. Bear
My favorite childhood memories come from a home that no one loved but an eight year old boy and his little sister. It was a rinky dinky single wide trailer house. The steps were concrete blocks and the driveway was dirt. The trailer hitch was where we kept our dogs tied up. It was redneck central. And I loved it. We had a pond in our backyard. To the left of us was an old worn down pigless pig pen. At least that's what our parents called it. To the imaginative children who lived in the home, it was a fort. A marvelous fort with chambers where all sorts of adventures were had.
It was just outside of that home that I got shot in the head with a BB gun. At least that's how I tell the story. My brother has always claimed the BB ricocheted off the mountain dew glass and the trajectory was a 90 degree angle upward to my forehead. In all fairness, it was the little snot of a girl who dared him to shoot with her in directly behind the bull's eye.
It was right outside that home that I learned to ride my first bike. I learned how to do a back flip on my parents bed. I got my first black eye from a swing set, another injury in which I hold my brother to blame. It was where my brother and I held a cooking show where we demonstrated how to make sandwiches and hot dogs wrapped in cheese. When I wanted to go fishing, I dug for worms in the dirt that was my parents driveway. And it was the house that I felt my first earthquake. Granted, living in Oklahoma in that decrepit trailer, it was probably just the wind.
Furthermore, it was in this house that I imagined Jesus' coming back to be him knocking on our front door, inviting him in our trailer and watching E.T. with my family until he had to leave to go visit the rest of the families in our church.
It was also in this house that I hid several weeks worth of first grade homework crumbled in my closet. I played with Barbies and got my first kitchen set. My brother taught me to sing the T.G.I.F. song and yelled at me when I didn't get the words or rhythm right. My brother tried to teach me the identity property of multiplication and was upset when his kindergarten sister was too stupid to understand. It was where my brother and I worked together to make my mother's birthday special by cleaning and making a beautiful happy birthday sign. To me it was like just like the surprise parties from television, when in reality it was nothing more than a picked up living room and a piece of paper with the words "Happy Birthday" misspelled.
Nevertheless, that meager single wide trailer has all my most adored memories.
My favorite memory of that home involves a special stuffed animal named Ted E. Bear. This was my brother's bear. My brother received this bear from our mother while still in the womb. It was my brothers sidekick on all of his cop and robber adventures. Yet at some point along the way, I decided I deserved ownership of that bear. It may have been simply because it was my brother's and I knew I couldn't have it. Or maybe I envied the affection my brother showed the stuffed animal. Either way, I wanted the bear. We fought and fought over Ted.
Our mom had just gotten a job at the courthouse. She decided that the only proper way to settle this was to sit us down at the kitchen table one Saturday morning. Each of us were at our spots. I knew exactly which spot was which, because I carved our names into the wood on the back of the chairs. My mom took the end closest to the living room. I took one the side closest to the window, and my brother sat across from me. Our mom had her big early 90's glasses on and a notebook and pen in front of her. The bear was in the center of the table, as it was the reason she brought us there that day.
We each had a chance to plead our case. We both wanted the bear. I don't know what sort of argument I could have made, considering the bear was not even close to mine. But my mom decided to be fair and gave us joint custody. We both signed the papers and walked away.
The bear was never really an issue again. In fact, I'm fairly certain I was done with the bear in a week's time. Years later, my brother and I felt we were far removed from our childhood shenanigans. We shared a room at an incredible, huge, brand new home in town. (In all reality, this was a home built seventy years prior, the bathroom didn't work, we shared a room, and the floor plan resembled the trailer home. It was a modest home, but it was the nicest house in which we ever lived.) We sat on our opposite sides of the room, with blue tape that drew a boundary dividing our space equally.
Mr. Ted E. Bear ended up getting thrown back and forth across the enemy line several times. Here I am now, nearly twenty years removed from those treasured family law documents citing joint custody. On that day, it was plain to everyone but me all I wanted was what I knew didn't belong to me.
All I wanted was control. For the past several years I have wanted control of my life. I wanted a degree so that I could have options before me. I wanted to be an adult.
I have options now, and I just want to go back to a life of riding a bike, digging for worms and having adventures in a desolate pig pen. I don't want to make decisions about the trajectory of my life. That's for adults.
But I got my W-4 today and I'm here to tell you, I grew up entirely too fast.
It was just outside of that home that I got shot in the head with a BB gun. At least that's how I tell the story. My brother has always claimed the BB ricocheted off the mountain dew glass and the trajectory was a 90 degree angle upward to my forehead. In all fairness, it was the little snot of a girl who dared him to shoot with her in directly behind the bull's eye.
It was right outside that home that I learned to ride my first bike. I learned how to do a back flip on my parents bed. I got my first black eye from a swing set, another injury in which I hold my brother to blame. It was where my brother and I held a cooking show where we demonstrated how to make sandwiches and hot dogs wrapped in cheese. When I wanted to go fishing, I dug for worms in the dirt that was my parents driveway. And it was the house that I felt my first earthquake. Granted, living in Oklahoma in that decrepit trailer, it was probably just the wind.
Furthermore, it was in this house that I imagined Jesus' coming back to be him knocking on our front door, inviting him in our trailer and watching E.T. with my family until he had to leave to go visit the rest of the families in our church.
It was also in this house that I hid several weeks worth of first grade homework crumbled in my closet. I played with Barbies and got my first kitchen set. My brother taught me to sing the T.G.I.F. song and yelled at me when I didn't get the words or rhythm right. My brother tried to teach me the identity property of multiplication and was upset when his kindergarten sister was too stupid to understand. It was where my brother and I worked together to make my mother's birthday special by cleaning and making a beautiful happy birthday sign. To me it was like just like the surprise parties from television, when in reality it was nothing more than a picked up living room and a piece of paper with the words "Happy Birthday" misspelled.
Nevertheless, that meager single wide trailer has all my most adored memories.
My favorite memory of that home involves a special stuffed animal named Ted E. Bear. This was my brother's bear. My brother received this bear from our mother while still in the womb. It was my brothers sidekick on all of his cop and robber adventures. Yet at some point along the way, I decided I deserved ownership of that bear. It may have been simply because it was my brother's and I knew I couldn't have it. Or maybe I envied the affection my brother showed the stuffed animal. Either way, I wanted the bear. We fought and fought over Ted.
Our mom had just gotten a job at the courthouse. She decided that the only proper way to settle this was to sit us down at the kitchen table one Saturday morning. Each of us were at our spots. I knew exactly which spot was which, because I carved our names into the wood on the back of the chairs. My mom took the end closest to the living room. I took one the side closest to the window, and my brother sat across from me. Our mom had her big early 90's glasses on and a notebook and pen in front of her. The bear was in the center of the table, as it was the reason she brought us there that day.
We each had a chance to plead our case. We both wanted the bear. I don't know what sort of argument I could have made, considering the bear was not even close to mine. But my mom decided to be fair and gave us joint custody. We both signed the papers and walked away.
The bear was never really an issue again. In fact, I'm fairly certain I was done with the bear in a week's time. Years later, my brother and I felt we were far removed from our childhood shenanigans. We shared a room at an incredible, huge, brand new home in town. (In all reality, this was a home built seventy years prior, the bathroom didn't work, we shared a room, and the floor plan resembled the trailer home. It was a modest home, but it was the nicest house in which we ever lived.) We sat on our opposite sides of the room, with blue tape that drew a boundary dividing our space equally.
Mr. Ted E. Bear ended up getting thrown back and forth across the enemy line several times. Here I am now, nearly twenty years removed from those treasured family law documents citing joint custody. On that day, it was plain to everyone but me all I wanted was what I knew didn't belong to me.
All I wanted was control. For the past several years I have wanted control of my life. I wanted a degree so that I could have options before me. I wanted to be an adult.
I have options now, and I just want to go back to a life of riding a bike, digging for worms and having adventures in a desolate pig pen. I don't want to make decisions about the trajectory of my life. That's for adults.
But I got my W-4 today and I'm here to tell you, I grew up entirely too fast.
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