I’m gonna be honest. Institute is tough. It’s rigorous, it’s demanding, it’s emotional, it’s exhausting. Yesterday I learned that many of my colleagues have decided to leave Teach For America. It’s not even Week 3 yet and people are throwing in the towel. It made me really appreciate the difficulty of what we’re all doing here. 20 people have decided to leave. Many more are ticking bombs. I see at least 10 emotional breakdowns every day. Bouts of, “I can’t do this” or “This is too much.” I’ve somehow managed to maintain sanity throughout all of this. Probably because I have a safe haven in Pearland to retreat to when Moody gets to be too much. (Sometimes you just don’t want to be around all the stress and tension.)
Today is Friday. Week One – CHECK. Here’s hoping next week is even better than this week. Here’s hoping my students actually learned something. I had a breakthrough with one student yesterday. She gets overwhelmed by new material and gives up, but once I helped her through it one-on-one she got it. She filled out her whole worksheet alone. And I had my first parent-teacher conference. I love it when parents get involved.
I’m off to the races. TGIF.
As I’m packing up to arrive at Induction in a few hours, your post just gave me chills.