Night of the First day of School

Where's my pillow?
It didn't help that my stepdaughter was up all night spinning in drama about a kink in her neck.. it was hard to tell what was overblown - though she bounced down the stairs in the morning like the panic never happened. So I went into this day with no sleep to begin with.
First to third, Montessori, public school, third year running. Many kinks and burps, and then there's the population, which is mostly dirt poor, super urban, third world country like when you drive past one of the entrances of school. Ginourmous building. 700 students or so? So many. Too many. I don't even know half the teachers names.
I hate to say and hesitate to describe the population. They're almost all Puerto Rican. Spanish spitfire fast lyrical language all around - and I don't understand a word.
Last year, my first year in such an extreme urban setting, I made the mistake of having a "sharing circle." I passed a stone with the rule that whoever holds it gets to share with the gathering; no one else may interrupt. It seemed like a good idea, you know, to find out what was important to the children, to give them a forum to speak, to empower. Until T said "Yesterday, my mother shook the baby so hard that it looked like his arm fell off, it was just dangling there."
... uh... uh... I can't talk, I said nobody can interrupt... uh.. thanks for sharing?
"Hmmm," I murmur.
Next G takes the stone. "On Sunday my mom got a knife from the kitchen and was chasing my dad around with it. She wanted to kill him."
Okay, this was a bad idea. Bad idea. K is agape, eyes popping out, a Mormon girl, the only white girl in my class, maybe in the school, who's parents thought it would be a good cultural experience for her. Well, it's definately a reality dose, but is it good for her to swallow? I told her mother what happened in that sharing circle, just to prepare her should questions be asked. Her mother was horrified, but kept her in for another month until K went home with a screaming case of head lice. She didn't come back after that.

This year I was more prepared, I thought. I'd already dealt with the children who came in bruised by belts and smacks, children who cried of hunger because they have no food at home and starving cats, the brutal murder of a favorite uncle. A was in foster care for a year and a half, separated from the rest of his family, and E came in bruised almost all the time.
There were reports and investigations. There were angered parents and strained relations.
There was, or, rather, there is, pain. Pain and yet the children hardly know it. It's just their life, who can quantify their own pain when there is nothing to relate it to? It's what they know. I can't fix it, change it, make it better, nothing. I can only love the hell out of these children, and try to teach them. In that order.

And I love this, and I hate this. And I can do it, most of the time, and don't want to, the rest of the time.

I spent the summer in the second summer of an intensive three summer AMI Montessori training course over an hours drive from where I live. All day, every day, and then piles of homework each weekend and when I say piles, I mean 12 or 14 hours worth. I mean 200 pages turned in the next week, as more piled up in the new week. Intensive; I'm not kidding. so. Summer? what summer? vacation? what vacation? I had one week off and was back in my classroom, getting ready for a new year. This year. Today.

I was so full of dread, and I felt awful about that. I love my kids. I love "making a difference." And sometimes? I don't.
But the kids! Sixteen returning to my class from last year - my first and second graders, now second and thrid graders, and ten new first graders. how bad could it be?
A went into one of his intense anger fits, out of nowhere, as usual. E climbed in shelves and barked in the gathering. I, the teacher who once prided herself on grace and patience, wanted to dissolve right there, into vapors, and disappear.
Why am I doing this? I'm 40 years old, not 25. Why am I doing this?

Lindsey, the teacher next to me, reminded me that these first days are not n0rmal days, and once we get into Montessori work cycles, things will feel much smoother... the rewards will come with the children's excitement and progress...

big sigh. Oh yeah... Last year B nearly jumped up and down because I could told him he could search for and record land and water forms he found on maps as much as he wanted. Actually, he did jump up and down, and said "YESSS!" And then filled pages of capes and bays and islands and peninsulas from all over the world, in categories of countries and continents. He also wrote a 40 page report on different animals, prompting two other children to follow suit. J did fractions until her brain popped with equivalences and denominators. She's in second grade.
Oh yeah. The work. The magic. The self construction.
Oh yeah. That's why I do this.
That's why I do this, isn't it?
I just hope that I'll remember soon that I want to do this.

I taught Montessori pre-school in New Zealand for two years over a decade ago. The children were so inherently, naturally well behaved it was almost... almost too easy, really.
If only I'd used that 26 year old energy to work at this school, and this 40 year old energy to work at that school. Not that I'm old and aging, but life is different when I have a family, animals, horses at the rescue farm down the road I help out at, and writing to do...

Oh but where is my pillow. I've gone on long enough.
One day at a time.
One day at a time.
Phew, here we go.
xo

First day

Thought this might help me get through. I've dreaded the return to school all summer for a number of reasons, though mostly the intensity of the children. The stories. I prided myself last year on not breaking down, carrying them home, taking my dog for a walk and brushing off the day making dinner and talking to my husband, la la la... Then one day I bawled my guts out. "What's wrong? Talk to me!"
"Those kids!! " I said. "It's just so sad!"
So. Gotta go. First day. Will let you know how it went.
Of course sleep was horrible I'm terribly late and that's all I can get down for now.