My Spiritual Suitcase

This weekend has been a whirlwind as I worked through my first wave of report cards. Be it the marking, the comments or the reflections, I can see why this isn't a favourite part of the job for teachers. It was difficult because while teaching is messy - be it the spilling of papers out of desks, the chasing of late assignments, the tending to student needs, to building of character, to attending to independent education plans or the nagging of other miscellaneous considerations, it somehow needs to be consolidated into neat letters and numbers on a piece of a paper three times a year. It doesn't help that most of the time as a first year teacher, I don't know what I am doing. Shooting in The Dark "Little by little the bird builds its nest."   Cultivating and building a foundation takes time and it doesn't happen immediately. Birds are careful in crafting their nests, considering what materials to use and how they intertwine with each other to produce a strong

I recognize that we are already a week into November and if I don't write this now, it probably won't get done. October flew by so quickly and I don't know if I have all that many new reflections to report on. One of the only things that came up again and again was Four Square during recess.  Four Square, a simple game of hand ball where four players take turns defending their quadrant whilst trying to get another player out. It seems like a simple game, in fact, it should be quite simple but whenever I was on recess duty and watched my students play, it was absolute mayhem.  Tornado! Tea Party! Poisonous Tea Party! Bomb! were some of the rule variations that were called and I have no idea what was going on. What I did see what our world within a game of four square. Every couple of minutes the rules would change (depending who was in the King position) but it lead to endless arguments and fighting, demands for redos and a barrage of finger pointing. Eyes would turn to me i