I am certainly not an avid blogger, but it occurred to me today that a lot has been happening and I haven't updated my blog in a while. I wish I took the initiative to update this page more, but I guess I will accept my limitations along with my poorly maintained blog.
I have been the librarian at the Middle School for a while now and I guess you could say I was settled in. My car now automatically aims for the middle school instead of the high school, but I still feel a little out of place here. I know where stuff is on the shelves, and I think I have been through most of the stuff in the cabinets. I still miss my high schoolers, but from a distance I realize I miss more than the building and the classes. I miss the people who used to be there - the staff who have retired or moved on and the kids who have graduated. Philosophically, I think the middle school may be better for me because in my mind the kids that leave here will still be just down the road, not grown up and gone. I suppose it will take me some time to really 'feel' at home here, but I am making progress.
I truly feel like I have the best job in the building. I have enough freedom to budget my time and still have enough interaction with the students and teachers that I feel like part of the campus. The reading teachers are great and value our library and resources. I teach a single STEM class that I enjoy, but it does distract from library business.
I thought it would be important to blog now, during the February blahs. We benchmark tested this week and it seems to have really brought the race to the end in to focus. Only three more months to go. With the weather bleak and cold, students and teachers get restless and tempers get short. It seems as though everyone is just trudging through school, holding out for spring break.
An important incident happened this week. One of my stuffed animals who lives in the library reading chairs and snuggles with kids disappeared. As the last period of the day began, he was here, but when school let out and I was re-arranging chairs, he was gone. They talk about the stages of grief - at first I was convinced he was here somewhere, under a chair or on a shelf. Then I was angry that someone would intentionally take him. The next day, we discussed his disappearance with the classes that had been in the library and asked for their help and his return. Yesterday, I cried. Not because I just miss him so much, but because it breaks my heart that someone would take something from me. Today, I simply hope wherever he is, he is loved as much as he was here. Maybe they needed him more than me. I am going to try and let it go without it changing the way I share with the kids, but for now, it still makes me sad.
This theft has brought home my concept of discipline. I have always thought my strength in classroom management was establishing relationships with all the kids and showing them I care about them. I went out of my way to do this with students who were particularly challenging and we usually found a way to make things work together. Maybe the students here do not know me well enough, or maybe I haven't done enough to make that kind of connection with all the students. It is harder with 400 kids than it was with only 100 or so. I am going to work harder at connecting with everyone and forget about the theft so I can move forward in a more positive way.
The February blahs are in full swing here but Monday is a workday for test training. Hopefully the extra day will give the kids and teachers enough of a break to recover from all the illness and generally ickiness to make it to spring break. Maybe.
