In April, we’re tired.
Spring break has sprung. Easter has Eastered, and Memorial Day is light years away from Memorial Daying. Seasoned educators will tell you that this trudge to the end is the hardest part of the gig. Small annoyances are magnified. The talkative student has talked too much. The co-worker’s perfume is finally too smelly. The tardy bell is just too damn loud.
Perseverance is one of the aspects we hope students learn during their time with us, and it is on full display in the month of April. We are like the marathon runner whose legs just want to give out and wobble, yet we see the finish line. We remember, somewhere in the back of our head that we’ve done this before, that we’ve made it to the end. How did we do this last year? The year before? There must be some mistake. This year must be longer than every other year we’ve ever taught.
In April, it feels like work.
We utilize phrases like, “Oh I’m getting there,” and “Just plugin along,” when people ask us how we’re doing, and for the first time all school year, we actually mean it. We sarcastically say, “Livin’ the dream,” which we really should stop saying because quite frankly, it’s getting a little old for my taste.
“But you only work 9 months a year, buck up,” they say, and there is some truth to that. It doesn’t change anything for us to hear that, nor does it impact the way that we feel when the alarm goes off on an April morning, nor does it change the way the kids feel.
The kids who have struggled with behavior issues the most this year have now been divided into two groups: Those that have demonstrated life altering growth and those that are now making our lives a living hell. There usually isn’t an in between.
In April, the kids are tired too.
5th graders are starting to think about middle school. 8th graders are preparing for high school, and seniors are about to transition into the next phase of life. Just like that. Their time in the cocoon is over and we hope to God that we’ve prepared them to be decent human beings over the last 13 years. There is, in my case at least, anxiety on behalf of the seniors. It’s like putting 500 of your babies on the school bus to kindergarten and watching as the bus turns the corner, hoping that they’ll be ok, telling yourself that they’ll be ok, but with just the slightest grain of self-doubt, wondering if you’ve really prepared them to leave.
It is in April that we also celebrate, and thank God we do. Honor’s Society inductions, Academic Achievement, Scholarship Awards, Military signings, and so on. We find ways in the bleak midwinter to remind ourselves why we do this and the amazing aspects of being an educator. We reminisce with our students about the crazy story from October, or check in about an ongoing issue at home. Humanity rises if we allow it.
In April, we dig deep, and if we’re lucky, we’ll make it to May.
love you Bran---Grandma Nette
Nailed it.