SOLSC #10 What about sleeping in?

I am participating in the
March 2018 Slice of Life Story Challenge (SOLSC).
All participants are writing about one moment, one part of their day, every day for thirty-one days.

A big thank you to Two Writing Teachers for providing this unique opportunity

for teacher-writers to share and reflect.

There is something so sublime, so nourishing, so lovely about sleeping in. My fast-paced, full teaching days have been coupled with busy weekends and I've had this sense of unceasing push and pull. Then, finally, I land with this incredibly soft, luxurious discovery: I open my eyes just barely and I see sunshine peeking around the curtains, and I smile and roll over and close my eyes again, submitting easily into another deep, rich snooze. What power is sleep! Energizing, rejuvenating, delighting. Saturday morning, I love you.

I'm on a classic quest - finding that elusive balance. My dear husband is retired, and I have several more years before that will be true for me, as well. His easy paced days are a sharp contrast to mine. His retirement has eased my life in so many beautiful ways - he takes care of meals, laundry, house repairs, cleaning...he drives me to and from the metro each day. Yet, I continue to look for ways to bring our two lives more in alignment...while teaching. Put me in a room of preschoolers and I have a blast...let me follow their lead, hear their wisdom, watch their problem-solving, feel their love, joy, and energy...let's dance, sing, build, draw, read together.

That's not my daily reality. There's more to it, always. There are so many things about teaching that seem hard and challenging in ways that shouldn't be - so many constructs that take away the joy. This week alone:

writing report cards in this sterile way, making sure that all of these are aligned across the preschool classrooms, being told that mine were too detailed (me - details personalize, individualize, let parents read about their child and not some formulaic gobbledy-gook that describes any preschooler)

expected to make more and more and more planning details, with increasingly less flexibility or autonomy for individual classrooms...less wiggle room for that special book that suits the conversation or play that organically came up...the goal being to have set plans for the school year - i.e., teaching the same way every year, rather than knowing your kids and running with their interests. 

feeling distance with my colleagues ... an intense planning discussion where no one asked any big 

questions, such as Why should the children study this? What's the larger goal? What are we hoping they'll discover? What are the children wondering?

Yes, it's been a tough week, a tough couple of weeks, a tough school year. But I have Saturdays.

I want, simply, to teach.