Skip to main content

September, eesh!

Back to school season is full of events, changes, new people, meetings, and for the Wolfhope family, a periodic fever syndrome for our younger son.  The stress of handling 'all the things' is often tolerable for me, until it's not. I love my job, and the responsibility and the freedom to try and fail, but ultimately succeed. I like knowing how to do things, things that are really kind of over my head, but I think I may be addicted to learning new things. That quest for always knowing more, the love of figuring things out, and the genuine joy I get for solving problems and helping people has really carried me through one of the most eventful Septembers I can remember.

But... I'm no superwoman. I have failed, and failed, and failed over and over again. I have let stress and a workload carry-over at home, often distracted, or saying, "I'm almost done." I was overcome with tears, just days prior to my son's surgery date. He's fine. He's a champion. We're hopeful this is the fix. Hopeful that high fevers, vomiting, and inflamed tonsils won't happen every 3 weeks any longer.  

And while the beginning of September was filled with emails reporting things that do not work, frustration with changes in procedures, and the general lack of understanding of the newness of so much this year... the end of September is different.

The 'fixing' is at a minimum, so now I can get to the work of instruction. I can talk and be with my teachers, helping them connect with the students and material. My favorite teacher being my husband. We are so lucky to be able to support one another in the same field. He's my go-to with a new tool, and he's always willing to try it out for me, and share it. I'm grateful for that, extremely.

I feel much more at ease, now that September is over... Surgery was successful, and we're in the flow of the year.  I would have struggled more had I not had some kind, nurturing relationships to lean on.

For at least of couple of weeks every afternoon ended with a "DDD" Daily Donna Debrief. Donna and I would share and discuss issues that we faced throughout the day and troubleshoot together, and also support one another. These conversations were daily life-savers.

Brandy and I started working at at the gym in the mornings. We thought we'd hate it...but darn if it isn't one of the best parts of the day! The workouts really boost our moods and energy levels!

Lucas Wolfhope... that kid... He's not gotten as much attention as his younger brother, but he's incredible. He's in that fun transition from a little first grader, to a big second grader. He has moments of extreme maturity that are gone in a flash and replaced with a tiny little one that just needs attention. He amazes me daily with his knowledge and understanding. He's creating every day, and it's just so amazing to see what he produces. Checking in with Lucas each day has helped recharge my battery.

My husband, he's one of a kind, and when I struggle he's surprised. I really do think he sees me a Wonder Woman. His confidence in me, is more than my own. I wouldn't want to spend our crazy Septembers with anyone else.

Comments

  1. Those DDDs got me through, too. Not just the "techy" conversations... but connecting daily with a friend- yeah that's good stuff. Maybe we should consider a WWW (weekly wows with Wolfhope)? Love ya, friend!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BreakoutEDU, YES!

Plan. Schedule. Print. Prep. Hide clues. Set locks. Test locks. Double-check clues.  Breathe. Engage. Breakout! I won't sugarcoat this, the process of preparing for my first BreakoutEDU session took me a long time!  (I used a pre-made game, Grammar Guru, it was great by-the-way!) However, every bit of time I spent printing, cutting, re-printing, scanning, and building was WORTH IT! Cyndi Childers, a 6th grade teacher at East Burke Middle School, was looking for something to get her students engaged, and I knew Breakout was just the trick. We ran two simultaneous games in two rooms, with Cyndi facilitating one room and myself in the other.  We had groups about about 12-15 students in each room.  The group size worked, it could have been smaller, but it really wasn't bad at all.   This game has a progression of clue finding, one leading to another, so they were all somewhat forced to be working together on 1-2 clues at once, which I liked.  This help...
This week was the first of the BCPS summer schedule, Monday through Thursday, with 11 and 12 month employees working 10 hour days.  On paper that sounds awesome, a three day weekend, and getting your 40 hour work-week in.  Well, I completed this four day work week.   And... I. AM. TIRED.   It didn't help that I forgot to turn my 4:50am alarm off, and was wide awake this morning well before sunrise.  However, its after 10am now, and I've had my coffee and shower, and I'm feeling alive.  This week has been productive, successful, and exhausting!  The team of Instructional Tech Facilitators had been assigned the task of setting up all the school/grade level sets of iPads with Apple Configurator in an effort to get them managed by Filewave.   We met Monday morning at Salem Elementary to get started with a cart of 30 iPads.  This was a teaching/learning session in which a team of all the ITFs serving the elementary schools wor...

Upgrade your phone and upgrade a classroom.

The students in Mrs. Moody's third grade class are working in a 1:1 environment, but it's not like other classrooms you may have seen.  The students in her class are using iPhones that have been deactivated from a cellular service provider.  These phones range from iPhone 4 to iPhone 5c, and have been collected over the past three to four years. Mrs. Moody, fellow teachers, and even the BCPS Technology Department have contributed their older model iPhones after upgrades. The students had been using iPhones in the classroom for several years, but now  each student now has their own device to work with in the classroom.  While the iPhone may have its limitations, it also has its benefits. The students can essentially have the world in their pockets, and they are using them to the fullest extent.  Check out just a few things the students have been doing: Taking pictures Accessing Google Drive, Docs, and Classroom Using QR Code Readers for scavenger hunts ...