Yesterday, M was reading Muggie Maggie by Beverly Cleary. In that story, the main character is learning to write in cursive, so parts of the text are printed in written cursive. He comes up to me and says, “Ms. Bennett, I can’t read this book.”
Me: Why not?
M: Because I don’t talk cursive.

We had back to school night on Wednesday. It went pretty well, considering I was grossly unprepared for it. Jess and I spent tons of time working on these packets for our parents, and then we forgot to copy like 3 pages for them that we had gotten from another teacher. And we made 20 copies for each of us and then we each only had like 8 parents show up. At least the parents who did show up in my class were impressed with my Big Goal and tracking system. One remarked, “80%. Wow. That is really good.” Yes, yes it is.

During the day on Tuesday, I was expecting my PD to show up to observe me since I told her I desperately needed help. So, after recess, I was sharpening pencils (since my Pencil Doctor neglected to do so) while the kids were making a picture for Back to School Night. I hear the door open, and I turn around expecting to see my PD. Was she there? No, instead I see, standing in my very own classroom, the Executive Director of TFA in the Bay Area. The Executive Director. In MY classroom. Luckily, the kids are really well-behaved when I put crayons in front of them, although one of them asked me if the ED was my dad. The ED is about 5 years older than me. But, these kids also think that I am 40 years old, so I guess they have difficulty determining how old somebody is just by looking at them. Anyway, the ED left me a really nice note, so that made me feel better. And my PD told me that after her observation, she thinks things are going really well in my classroom. I wish I could see it from an outside perspective, because most of the time I feel like not a single one of my students listens to anything that I have to say.

The most amazing thing about teaching to me is how up and down it is. I can wake up in the morning totally hating my life and by noon feel really excited about teaching just because one kid finally understood ten more and ten less. On the other hand, I can wake up feeling really prepared for my day only to find out at about 9:30 that I was thinking about all of my plans in the wrong way and I’ve been wasting my entire morning. I work about 12 hour days every single day, only to go home and plan plan plan until I get so tired that I drop. I feel more emotional on the weekends because it’s the first time all week that I’ve had to process all the ridiculous stuff that’s happened to me, and I am never able to catch up on my sleep and feel rested. Oh, well. Only 7 more weeks until I come home for Thanksgiving.