All That I Can Do
I can stand in a room full of 26 computers and 24 Kindergarteners and not be afraid.
I can have the power blink 7 minutes before my computer class and still be up and ready before the kids come in.
I can have lessons to teach that require minor assistance from the classroom teacher and still pull it off when I have a day full of substitute teachers that know nothing about how to help.
I can have a lab full of a dozen students, ready to participate in a reading program that I have not been trained on nor instructed in nor debriefed about and still teach them something about the program (and myself) in the half hour we have together.
I can change my schedule for every new need of my principal, including a change to cover for a recess monitor; to eat my lunch at 10:30 on Tuesdays to accommodate the lab schedule; to become a hall monitor before and after school instead of a bus monitor; to move classes around to accommodate the needs of one particular student in one particular class....
I can reproduce an entire set of log-in cards when they go missing even though I am certain I didn't lose them but unable to find them and the teacher insists she didn't take them only to have the teacher confess days later that she did in fact find them in her room.
I can grade papers, staple art projects, file math papers, and any other assorted tasks for other teachers when I have nothing at all to do in my lab.
I can help a brand new sub on her very first day, even making sure to be in the classroom at the end of the day when it's time to get kids ready for the bus (she apparently didn't make this a priority for herself, I was there alone with the kids).
But today, I did the hardest thing yet. I stuck a needle into a precious little six year old Kindergarten girl. She's diabetic and every day we have to test her blood and give her insulin and it's been changed to my list of duties as there needed to be a shift with the woman who was helping. And I did it, and we both survived. She made it easy. She's braver than I am.
I can have the power blink 7 minutes before my computer class and still be up and ready before the kids come in.
I can have lessons to teach that require minor assistance from the classroom teacher and still pull it off when I have a day full of substitute teachers that know nothing about how to help.
I can have a lab full of a dozen students, ready to participate in a reading program that I have not been trained on nor instructed in nor debriefed about and still teach them something about the program (and myself) in the half hour we have together.
I can change my schedule for every new need of my principal, including a change to cover for a recess monitor; to eat my lunch at 10:30 on Tuesdays to accommodate the lab schedule; to become a hall monitor before and after school instead of a bus monitor; to move classes around to accommodate the needs of one particular student in one particular class....
I can reproduce an entire set of log-in cards when they go missing even though I am certain I didn't lose them but unable to find them and the teacher insists she didn't take them only to have the teacher confess days later that she did in fact find them in her room.
I can grade papers, staple art projects, file math papers, and any other assorted tasks for other teachers when I have nothing at all to do in my lab.
I can help a brand new sub on her very first day, even making sure to be in the classroom at the end of the day when it's time to get kids ready for the bus (she apparently didn't make this a priority for herself, I was there alone with the kids).
But today, I did the hardest thing yet. I stuck a needle into a precious little six year old Kindergarten girl. She's diabetic and every day we have to test her blood and give her insulin and it's been changed to my list of duties as there needed to be a shift with the woman who was helping. And I did it, and we both survived. She made it easy. She's braver than I am.
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