More Pie
Recently, I was reading a post about
what a teacher wished she had more of (I can’t find the post or else I’d link
to it) – things like more time, more resources, more to help with student
achievement.
As I was reading, of course, I was nodding my head in
agreement, but I also kept thinking, what I really wish I had more of, was
simply, me.
I am very lucky. I have an
amazing student teacher this year, a loving foster grandmother, and a
paraprofessional who works in my room for many hours each day, but even with
all those adults, and I’ve worked with no other adults in the room, so I know
how what it’s like to be all alone, I still sometimes wish there was more me to
go around.
The analogy I use is a pie – simply
because pies are always used as analogies and I love pie. Apple pie,
cherry pie, most any pie will do, but I digress. I’m the pie and however
many students I have is the number of slices. Of course, some kids get bigger
slices than others, but everyone gets a piece.
Some days there may be one
or two that get almost half my pie and the others share the rest… as my
sprouts have heard over and over, ‘fair isn’t equal’ – especially when dealing
with pie. No matter how I slice and dice it, I always wish the pie was bigger.
Sure more books, iPads, and math manipulatives would be great, but more of me
is what they really want.
As much as I’ve thought about it,
I’ve yet to discover a way to clone myself. Perhaps someday, there will be ten
of me in my classroom, two or three Mr. Halperns sitting at each table smiling,
laughing, tying shoes, zipping coats, applying bandaids, reading one on one,
and just being me. It might seem a little creepy, but I think my students
would love it.
Of course, this isn’t going to
happen anytime soon. So I try my best to make sure each child gets a
little of my attention each day. Have I had a conversation with
everyone? Did they get a hug or pat on the back from me yet today?
There are five kids who need shoes tied, one with a bloody finger,
another vomiting on the floor, and two boys wrestling on the floor – I need to
handle all these situations with clarity, ease, and love in the next two
minutes before the principal arrives for my observation… and somehow I do.
They say wizards and magic aren’t
real, but anyone who works with small children knows:
We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers
of dreams,
Wandering by lone
sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate
streams;—
World-losers and
world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon
gleams:
Yet we are the movers and
shakers
Of the world for ever, it
seems.
As
much as I’d love to give a little more of me, I have to remind myself, and I do
so daily, I’m already giving all of me and that’s all anybody can strive
to do.
Taken from Look at My Happy Rainbow
