Started with a sore throat on Thursday night and now it seems to have turned into a chest cold. Lots of coughing. Yesterday Shannon and I went to Apple Valley to pick up my sewing machine. It is all cleaned and oiled and ready for another year of service. By the time we got back home, I was wiped out. I sat in my chair and watched shows that we had recorded over the week. My mind is full of energy and it gets frustrated with my body who won’t keep up. There are so many things I want to do but sometimes just walking to another room leaves me worn out. I guess this is my body’s way of asserting itself. One of the lessons this whole experience has taught me is that I must honor my body just as much as I do my head. Before I became ill I never thought about my body. It was like I lived from the neck up. Now I am forced to acknowledge my body’s importance and to pay attention to its needs. Such a tough lesson for me.
I talked to Lindsay last night and she has cautioned me to be open minded when we see the oncologist on Thursday. The gal that was doing chemo with me had been told by the oncologist that she would need 6 – 9 treatments. She had her heart set that she was done after the 6th one. But the oncologist wanted her to have 3 more. Although she was really disappointed, she did those additional three. She just had a CT scan and last week the oncologist told her she was cancer free! The oncologist told me 9 – 12 treatments. I have had 8 full treatments so far. Lindsay doesn’t want me to be devastated if the oncologist wants me to do more treatments. So although I so want to be done with chemo so I can get my life back, I am trying to psych myself up so if he does say I need more, I won’t be blindsided. We shall see.
I am having lunch with Heather and Martha tomorrow. Haven’t seen them since I have been off from work in January. Martha has sent me numerous text messages wishing me well, and Heather has sent me a card every week with news of her family. I am so fortunate to have such wonderful friends. I go back to work on Wednesday to a new classroom where all of my stuff is in boxes. Martha will be helping me to get the classroom in shape for when the students start on Monday Aug 22.
It appears that I already have 21 students on my roll. These students have a variety of cognitive and behavioral challenges such as autism, mental retardation, ADHD, among others. These students are in my Special Day Class where they are supposed to have small group instruction to help to remediate their academic deficits so they can eventually be moved into the general education classes. With 21 students in grades 4-6 and academic abilities that range from K – 4, and having only one aide, small groups are pretty much out the window. This has caused me no small amount of angst in the past. But this year my perspective has changed. I will do the best that I can to teach those who are receptive. I will set up a learning environment that will group students by ability and a schedule that will provide instruction in as small of groups as possible. And I will teach as I have always done. The difference this year is in the level of responsibility I will be assigning to my role. Believe me that I want so much to be able to reach each of the students in my class and see that they are progressing toward academic mastery. But I have come to realize that some students (due to a variety of reasons) will not be receptive. They have so much emotional baggage that they are unable to function appropriately in an SDC class such as mine. These students need much more attention than I am able to give with the high numbers of students placed in my class. I would love to be able to do counseling sessions (individual and group) with these students and try to help them with their emotional issues. But I am not there as a counselor. I am there as a teacher. That being said, I have taken myself off the hook for feeling responsibility for those students. I thank one of the administrators in my district for that. In a meeting we were all told that “we are not there to fix kids”. As much as that threw me for a loop when I heard it, I have come to realize that it is true, that I cannot fix all kids. Like the starfish story, even if I reach one, I will have made a huge contribution in that one child’s life. So the burden of responsibility has been lifted from me alone and shifted to include the parents, the students, the administration and the community. With that paradigm shift I am looking forward to my sixteenth year of teaching. I have the pleasure and honor of an amazing para-professional, Martha, who everyday goes way above and beyond. As a team we will do the best that we can for as many as we can.
The other thing I need to focus on this year is my dissertation. As soon as the district rolls over the students from 2010/2011 to 2011/2012 I can get the list of potential participants. I hope to start right away getting interviews scheduled. Then the writing can begin and the drafts sent to my committee. I’m going to have a schedule so I work on the dissertation each day for a specific amount of time. The chair of my committee recommends writing one page per day. I think that is doable!
I go tomorrow to have my week after chemo blood test. It’s gonna be a busy week. :)
Hugs to all!
Dar
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