What?

Tuesday (before Thanksgiving) I experienced my first official hearing. Bet you can't guess which student it was for? That's right - 19. For right now, he gets to stay. He returns the Monday after Thanksgiving. My energy level drains just thinking about it.
Oh, the Monday after Thanksgiving...that day starts about 3 long weeks of school until Christmas Break!! ALAS - FREEDOM! Needless to say I am not looking forward to those three weeks - I know we all will be going insane.

But, the year is almost half way through. I am almost half way through with MY FIRST YEAR OF TEACHING - WOW! It has flown by so fast I haven't been able to breath or take it in most days. As I think about the fact that it is almost half way over...I seriously wonder...WHAT?...have these kids learned anything? Am I making any progress with them? Have I done things right? Will they be better off having me as a teacher this year or would they have done better being in someone else's class? I look at student's like 19 and think - he should have been in someone else's class...not because I don't want him in mine, but because if he had been in a more experienced teacher's class then maybe he would have made more progress by now because that teacher would know what she was doing. Rather than I, who ran around like a chicken with her head cut off hoping for each day to pass quickly - it has surely been exhausting...I thought I knew what it was like to be tired - but I quickly found out that I didn't know what it meant to be tired until I had this job. Then I look at my kids who are high and I see what they are doing and that they are getting things and taking what we learn and they are applying it. That makes me feel good and like we're getting somewhere. But, at the same time, my heart hurts for the child that just doesn't get it. No matter how many times I say it or how many various ways I explain it, he just doesn't get it. And what do I do? There are so many. My heart simply breaks for them.

This definitely wasn't the first year I had pictured, but it has been a first year (at least half of it) that I can say I'm truly grateful for. And I LOVE those children in MY classroom with all my heart.