Sleepless in Hoboken

Ugh, I should've known better.

What was I thinking, that I could travel back from Mallorca to Madrid to Newark over a 24 hour time span, not sleep on the plane, and then find myself fresh as a daisy?

After not getting to sit next to my husband on the way home from our one and only HONEYMOON?

After coming home and unpacking and doing laundry and getting my school stuff sorted?

After having severe anxiety and tinges of depression over starting back to work, having just spent the past two months being my own boss?

After eating absolute junk on the plane and then not eating anything upon arrival home due to lack of hunger from fatigue?

After getting all emotional and whiny and bitchy and then breaking into uncontrollable sobs while on the phone with one of my Bffs over something that neither one of us has any control over?

After not taking allergy medicine after having an allergic reaction to the kitty because I have been away from her for so long?

After not taking even a half of a Tylenol PM or any other sleeping aid or even drinking a glass of wine before bed to try and lull me to sleep?

Was I actually thinking I would get to sleep on my own and wake up fresh as a morning spring, ready to start a new year?

Or am I a masochist who was secretly looking forward to having a miserable combination of jet lag and insomnia on the eve of my first day back to work?

What's La Pointe of It All? Simple - this is going to be a long, long day.

Kids and School

When, at breakfast this morning, my soon to be MIL commented, "You love your job, don't you, Ali?", I rolled my eyes and shuddered.

As if conjured by a charm, images of this past year's Period 4 English experience flooded my mind. While I LOVED the kids in that class as individuals, together as a group they drove me to the brink of madness and I can say that publicly and candidly because they know it.

They also know that I loved them and that to this day, I will go out of my way to help any of them but I'll never sugarcoat how difficult it was to teach them.

Fortunately, they had me as their teacher and I'm not saying that to sound conceited or to imply that I'm the world's greatest teacher because I'll be the first to admit that I'm not; I have A LOT of faults as an educator however luckily, the way I feel about and understand teenagers isn't one of them.

Did my Period 4 English class purposefully try to drive me insane? No. Was the atmosphere of that class the fault of an individual(s)? No. Would the experience of that same group of students have been the same if it had a different teacher? NO.

Then why was teaching that group of kids difficult?

I don't know - it just was and that's the point of this post.

Teaching is not easy - AT ALL. But learning isn't easy, either. And unfortunately, there isn't much that can be done to make either of them fool proof and, in my opinion, that's ok as long as both parties try its hardest to put forth a positive attitude and a true effort and, most importantly, as long as both parties care about one another as individuals. Mutual respect goes A LONG WAY in the classroom and in the long run, will teach a student more than a text book ever could.