Long weekends

Never in my wildest dreams would I think that I would loathe weekends. That I would count the hours until Monday arrived, bringing a week of demands that I am starting to look forward to.

I’m an elementary school teacher, and so I do not work the regular 9-5 day as much of the world.  My work day does not end when the final bell goes. Nor does it end when I go home. There is always more to do.  Don’t take this the wrong way and think I’m just another complaining educator, claiming to be overworked and underpaid. I love my job.  Since I was an innocent second grader I dreamed of having my own class, and today I am there.

I have a class of 27 sixth graders. Twenty-seven eleven year olds who warm my heart with hope for future generations and make me want to bang my head against the wall all at the same time.  There are days when I speak to them as equals, days they are wise beyond their short lifetimes, and days when I still see them for who they truly are – children.  And despite their complicated nature, their struggle to maintain innocence in a world that shoves them into adulthood at an ever quickening pace, they have somehow managed to be an anchoring force in my life.

I know that when the  bell rings at 8:40 tomorrow morning, I will be greeted with “Good morning” which will be quickly followed up with “Do we have gym today”???.  I’ll tell them to take off their sweaters to appease our uniform policies, and wait for them to line up quietly. I refuse to take them down the hall for their favourite class until they are silent. I’ll collect the late slips and tell the girls to hurry out of the change rooms, they’ll have time to finish gossiping at recess. They’ll ask for extra silent reading time, which always encourages me to think I may have had a hand in cultivating readers, an activity which was my own first love.  We’ll end the day with math, a time of day that no one is luke warm about. Math is either loved or disdained by these kids.

I long for Monday because these twenty-seven are there. There are some that make me question my decision to become a teacher. There are others that reaffirm my choice. But all of them are loyal. I can say with confidence that if asked, not one would choose to be in another class over mine. They groan at the prospect of a supply teacher, and tell me they missed me when I return from a day at a workshop.  They trust me enough to ask me to sit with them to help mediate problems between friends they can not solve on their own. They smile when I say I am proud of them because they know it’s true.  Those twenty seven lives make me feel needed and worthwhile. Perhaps that makes me selfish and arrogant .  But it’s what I find encouragement in these days.

So Sunday night better get here soon. I don’t know how much more of the weekend I can take.