I've gone back and read my last post several times and sighed.
I was and am frustrated and even a bit embarrassed that I am so worn. However, as I have been open and honest with the state of my head and heart, there are those that have come around me and given me some much needed support and encouragement.
My assistant principal has been a tremendous advocate for me and what is happening in my classroom. When I sent an SOS email to him, he responded very quickly with a list of things for me to do, most of which were focussed on caring for myself and doing things to breathe some life into me. His counsel, listening ear, and never-ceasing support have been an enormous encouragement for me since he and I sat in his office last January saying, "Wouldn't it be cool if school were..." which led to this grand experiment.
Our school social worker has worked very closely with me this year making sure that the students are successful in every way possible. What started out as me sharing a concern about a student quickly turned into a full-blown therapy session with me spilling my guts to her about the weight I was feeling on my shoulders. She sat and listened. And listened. And listened. Her words of advice and encouragement meant the world to me and allowed me to leave her office feeling a bit lighter than when I walked in.
To say that my wife has helped me through this time and so many others is as much of an understatement as saying, "Breathing is kind of important." Her support, her patience, her friendship, her willingness to put the boys to bed to give me a few hours to get schoolwork done, her amazing ability to sit and listen to me verbally process for seemingly hours on end, her unfailing love, her tremendous heart, and her unceasing ability to extend her husband grace is much more than I deserve. She has reminded me constantly where peace and joy may be found, and how to release the heavy burden I try to carry with my own strength.
Sometimes it takes being worn to truly see just how much the people around you impact your life to its very core.
And of course there are my students.
To say that I have been invigorated by their engagement and excitement in the past few weeks is a gross understatement. They took it upon themselves to adopt a new project based on educating others about the importance of and current crisis facing honeybees. I was absolutely blown away as my students formed groups themselves based on their individual interests and learning styles. They have worked harder in the past few weeks than I have seen all year. They are calling experts, researching multiple topics, and organizing their time, all with the goal of creating a presentation to give to our superintendent that gives an overview of their project. Students who once struggled with staying focussed in class are now emailing a variety of vendors trying to get the best deal on honey sticks for a fund raiser. Students who struggled with having their heads down for a chunk of class are researching, comparing, and contrasting different races of bees and determining what will be best for our observation hive. Students who struggled with talking in class are creating a blog and social media campaign to get the word out about our project. Students terrified of bees are studying pollination in flowers and how to plant a garden with different flowers so that something is always blooming for the bees. Several students formed a treasury department team and have crunched numbers, researched different vendors, and made tough decisions in order to minimize the amount we have to fundraise to get this off the ground. Students formed marketing teams to research how we could both get our message out to the public and do so in a fun and creative way. Students have worked together to assemble all the data and research gathered by their classmates and put condensed it down into a well-organized and engaging Keynote.
And they did it all themselves.
And I didn't plan for any of this.
Our Essential Question that the students created for their latest project is "How do living and non-living organisms interact with their environment?" All I intended was to bring in my beekeeping equipment and talk to them about bees for the day, showing one way that I interact with my environment.
Then things just blew up.
In an amazingly beautiful way.
These past two weeks are exactly what I pictured this time last year as I lay in bed in the middle of the night dreaming about what school could be. As I lay there wondering how I could create an environment that would throw tons of fuel onto the fire of wonder, awe, and amazement that is deep within us all, these past few weeks is exactly what I dreamed would happen.
My students are owning their learning. They are working together. They are working independently. They are stepping out of their comfort zones. They are trying new things. They are engaged. They are driving this thing. They own it.
And it has lifted me up from where I had fallen, breathed life into me, and makes me so excited to see what the next day will hold.
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