A Team Fante Effort!

Twelve years ago on my last day of teaching high school, I told my students I was leaving to begin a new job.   It started the next week on a Thursday at 2 AM when a screaming infant ripped into the world.  It was not the Hallmark moment I imagined, but a good indicator of how reality is much more complex than the hazy pink glow of motherhood I let take root in my head.  A few sleepless night later at 4:00 PM my husband found me seated in my glider in our beautifully decorated rain-forest nursery sobbing hysterically.  “No nothing is wrong with the baby.” I assured him, “It’s just that usually by now I am on my way home from work, and I just realized I am never going to be off from work again.”  This morning as I type those words I remember that green girl and grin because…she was right.  From the moment of my oldest son’s birth, I have never quite been my own woman.  And unlike the other jobs I have held, there are some days, when I am so unsure that I am decent employee worthy of the title of mom.

My children come with me to Camp Literacy.  They are enrolled in the program and we car-pool together.  They are the worst co-workers you can imagine.  They are constantly late, running up to the car and then remembering they haven’t brushed their teeth.  I can’t tell you have many times we are 10 minutes into our commute and they ask me if I brought them something to eat because they forgot breakfast and are starving.  They talk too loudly, change the radio station, and every time we hit a drive through…I have to pay.  By the time, I arrive at work I am usually frazzled rushing them off to their classes before I welcome a classroom full of more children.  Once last week when my husband was off he took them to the pool for the day, and I went to work alone.  I arrived 1 hour early, listening to my personal Pandora station, and drinking a Starbucks latte.  It was soothing, peaceful, and…lonely.

I tried to remember that feeling on Wednesday this week, as I was driving to work exhausted from a long night and early morning of prep, laundry, and email.  You know it’s going to be difficult when you are headed towards your destination wishing you were on your way home.  Everyone has an unmet need that day.  I packed Zeke a blueberry yogurt for breakfast.  He announces he HATES blueberry and shouldn’t I remember since dad only sends him vanilla.  Eden refuses to brush her hair, stating it looks like Rapunzel when it is tangled in the back, and Elijah grumbles he doesn’t feel well and will be taking a morning nap in the sleeping bag I set up for my class to use as a reading area.  “Oh no, you will not,” I toss back.  “I have parent-teacher conferences this morning and I don’t want you rolling around in the tent. What would the parents think?”  By the time I stumbled into the classroom, conferences are starting in 5 minutes and I have 85 things to accomplish.  When the administrator of the program stops by my room, she asks politely why Elijah is curled up in the sleeping bag, I have a silent mental temper tantrum and ask him sweetly to come out.  “But mom, you said when you have a parent in the room, she’s the boss not a parent.” Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, and breathe out.

Finally my children settled in the hall with books and breakfast, I start the conference.  It seems to be going well as I share my insights into how to motivate a child to spend more time practicing site words, the parent smiling and nodding, until my 5 year old daughter wanders back  into the classroom.  She creeps close to my ear, knowing she is pushing boundaries and shares in a very loud whisper, “Mom, Zeke is bored.  He wants to go home and I hate writing.”  I look at her unblinking.  Now where am I supposed to go?  “OK, sweetie back in the hall.  Mom will be there in a minute.  Tell Zeke to eat his yogurt.” Dear reader as I am sure you remember…Zeke HATES blueberry yogurt and this is information that has to be shared.  So I did what every self respecting educator would do in my position, I pretend my daughter doesn’t exist and turn back to the parent with more sound advice about teaching children at home.  Only by this time, the mom has a knowing grin on her face.  Yup, I am exposed, the soft under-belly of my struggle to raise my own kids left bare.  And somehow in this moment she seems to like me more.  “It’s OK,” she comforts me; “my kids are the same way.”

And so begins another day of learning letters, being patient, sharing sounds, being patient, discovering the joy of blowing six foot bubbles, being patient, reading Lilly’s Plastic Purple Purse, being patient.  Until finally I am seated on the carpet with my students, the scheduled agenda behind us, and it’s time to meet our letter of the day puppet.  I use my phone to record this, so parents can go to my website and watch the videos with their kids. Teaching is my happy spot.  Somehow it was and has always been an island for me, my normal, leaving me feeling refreshed and renewed rather than drained.  And then my son appears at the outer edge of the carpet.  His teacher’s helper, one of my college students at Baker, brings  him to my classroom because he has a fever.  Suddenly in a cosmic clash of the universe all three of my identities collide; mother, teacher, faculty member…everyone is at the carpet and I am on stage with a nurse puppet on my hand.  What to do, what to do?  Smile at the student teacher, and let the nurse puppet take the 12 year old’s temperature while my five year old students giggle with glee. (You can watch my personality crisis live below…LOL)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NrkjC6mJMY&feature=youtu.be

On the way home from Camp, my children watch the video over and over again.  They think it is hilarious the nurse puppet nuzzling my son as he good-naturedly refuses her kisses.  And as always I search for meaning…which comes as I stand in the kitchen doling out ibuprofen and peanut butter sandwiches.  Elijah mentions casually, “Mom, I think the way you teach your class is awesome.  You do everything in a hands-on way.  If everyone taught like that kids would never forget what they learned. Someday, Mom I will be that kind of teacher.”  He walks away leaving a trail of sticky peanut butter crumbs all over the island.  And so my biggest critics are my greatest fans, their praise a balm for my tired soul.  I think of my husband who trapped, labeled, and cleaned out of jelly jar to hold a stag beetle for my class last week, my daughter who created a learning-center for my kids by gathering all my letter shaped-cookie cutters and her personal play-doh, and the boys who help me pack the car every morning with blocks, Sponge-Bobs, and other items designed to delight the kids in my class.  And I know with surety this is OUR journey, a TEAM FANTE effort for greatness in the classroom.  And like all great teams their support will lead to achieving more than one ever could alone.

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