Each cookie is not precisely a quarter inch thick.
The sugar coating might be uneven.
These cookies and their counterparts might be my greatest accomplishment.
You’re shaking your head right now.
How can these misshapen, ill-sized cookies be my greatest accomplishment.
It’s really quite simple. They bring a whole group of people together… anticipating, discussing, tasting, smiling, laughing and generally filling themselves to the top metaphorically and actually with holiday joy.
I meant for that to happen.
It’s a metaphor actually.
You don’t have to do anything perfectly or photo-ready. It doesn’t have to always work out perfectly or maybe even at all. Sometimes you have to wait hours or even days for the end result and even then, you wish just a little bit that it was slightly better than it turned out. It turns out that it still tastes sweet, brings smiles, fosters hope, elicits joy, and generally gets the job accomplished.
If you show up day after day, year after year, dependable, joyful, willing, the effort will be appreciated. The results will be remarkable. The legacy will be cemented.
We often have the urge to rush to the finish line, do tasks quickly and hurry during these last weeks. I suggest that savoring is in order. Having some moments of gentle reflection, but how to maintain that?
The last two weeks my consults with teachers have been rushed, missed, derailed, disjointed and generally unhelpful. Or were they?
For the first two weeks after our April vacation, we had a period of re-entry and readjustment. We looked to our ‘finish line’, the 35 or so days until the end of this school year. We also began to think about our next year as well.
It might not have looked like that to a passerby.
Sometimes those talks are the norm, chats about RtI meetings upcoming, book clubs, end of year assessments, keeping up engagement. Sometimes, these meetings contain other subjects, recent Netflix offerings, books on our reading lists, what we are making for dinner.
I try for balance. A sandwich of chat. A little personal (ish) chat and a connection to the work we are doing. Much like the students, we have to work to keep our engagement up as well even in the midst of interruptions. The last of the state testing days, some wrapping up meetings, trainings for next year’s new math program, illnesses, even heat, affect our energy and slow our rhythm as we work to give all of us-students and teachers- closure for this school year.
A simple meeting or so I expected, fell into momentary chaos yesterday afternoon as the time left ran smack into end of year assessments and documentations. An effort was made to simplify assessments incorporating them into daily routines and using students’ daily work fell into the abyss of concerns about changes and timing. Everyone needed to take a deep breath, especially me.
It was unexpected. But should it have been? The time to review what will happen at the end of the year is not perhaps with a month left. To me, it was plenty of time, but Memorial Day always looms large, no matter that we teach routinely into June.
Sometimes we have to just let the chaos happen, the worries spill out, the messiness occurs… and then move on. Probably everyone left knowing what they need to know about the end of the year assessment documentation. Many vented some possibly long-standing frustrations. Most were already prepared for the upcoming tasks. So we move like my newly view Cuban snail, we move carefully forward to the end of the year.
The next couple of weeks, I will be helping with end of year assessments, but also with end of the year celebrations and end of year reflections. I will try to savor all the moments.
In keeping with National Poetry Month, I am writing poems in April. A nonet is a nine line poem with lines constrained by syllable length in descending order beginning with nine. Here goes.
A cherita is a linked poetry form consisting of a one line stanza, a two line stanza and a three linked stanza linked in a story.
Here is a little cherita about a stork.
We marveled at your arrival timing outside that door marked bait.
You waited patiently. Did you know there were fish behind the door?
We watched eagerly for the tableau to continue. The door slowly opened and the bait holder emerged, negotiations ensued Undeterred you waited patiently until you were rewarded. A Pavlov’s bird?
Reflections from a Coach 