I survived!

Last Wednesday was my last official day of school!  I still had to go on Thursday to check out of my room and stuff, but there were no kids there!  I can’t believe my first year of teaching is over!  At times it FLEW by, and at times, it seemed as though the year would never end.  I have learned a great deal this year.  Here are some of the things I have learned (In no particular order):

1.  I will never, ever, ever understand 6 year old boys.  EVER.  Never, in my entire life, have I thought, “I am going to jump on this kid now, “ or “I think I am going to spit on this child.”  WHY do boys think like that?!  Sometimes one of the boys in my class would do something (hit someone, kick someone, trip someone), and I would ask him, “Why did you do that?”  The child would respond, “I don’t know.  I wanted to.”  Sometimes I would then counter with, “Well, if I wanted to run my car into this building, should I?”  The child would say, “No!”  And I would say, “Why not?  I want to!”  To which he would respond, “You can’t do stuff just because you want to.”  And then I would say, “Oh, so you shouldn’t just hit (or kick or trip) someone just because you want to?”  And click!  All of a sudden it would make sense to the child… At least until the next day when he hurt someone else.

2.  It helps so much to have fantastic co-workers.  I worked with some amazing women this year, and they helped me so much.  Kelsey and Sarah were so much fun to plan with and laugh with.  We did so many fun things with our classes—movie nights, field trips, kickball, etc.  I don’t know what I would have done without them this year!  They made my life so much less stressful!  And, there was Dawn and Jina.  They are the sweetest women in the world, and they always made me smile—even when they had to report that my kids (boys) were throwing food at lunch or something.  There was also Alice.  She was so supportive and always there with tips and resources... and a SMILE!  Especially while we waited for the kids we tutored in the morning.  Thank you to these wonderful women!

3.  As much as I loved my BYU education, it simply did NOT prepare me for some things.  BYU prepared me to work in schools where the families were white, middle-class, and Mormon.  It prepared me for kids who had gone to church every single week their entire lives and knew that sometimes, you just have to sit down and be quiet.  You’re not always going to be entertained, but you have to sit still anyway.  It prepared me to have one child in my class who has behavior issues, as opposed to 6 who are on individualized behavior plans.  BYU prepared me to teach in schools where parents were eager and willing and able to volunteer in my classroom.  It prepared me for families where parents always help their kids with their homework, always come to parent/teacher conferences, and are super involved in their children’s education.  BUT, that being said, I wouldn’t have gone to any other school, so I am not really complaining.  Just a little bit.

4.  Life is not fair.  My kids this year have experienced things that no kid should have to experience.  One day we had a conversation about how many of their dads had been in jail.  Well over half of my class raised their hands.  I had one boy who sobbed uncontrollably for hours, for 3 days, because he and his mom and siblings had left their abusive father and were now living in a shelter.  I had a little girl who couldn’t come on our field trip because her family couldn’t pay the $2 it cost to go… I ended up paying for her.  I had to write a letter last month to U.S. Border Control, detailing my interactions with the dad of one of my students.  Dad was being detained at the border and was on the brink of being deported.  I had to report on how this was affecting his son in the school setting, and what kind of parent his dad seemed like.  In all reality, his son was unable to concentrate on anything in class—even in a one-on-one setting.  Kids shouldn’t have to worry about this stuff.  Kids should be playing cops and robbers, building forts, and riding their bikes, not thinking about how their father will not be out of jail until they are fathers themselves.  Life is not fair. 

5.  People are generous.  When I started the year, I was so overwhelmed with how behind my students were.  I mean, I knew that none of them knew English as their first language, but I did not anticipate NONE of them even reading on an end of Kindergarten level when they came to me.  I started thinking about everything I needed to help these kids learn to read, and realized that they needed to read at home.  And then I realized that none of them had books at home—especially not in English.  Most of their parents couldn’t read in English, and some had parents who couldn’t read in Spanish, either.  So, I did a book drive in my hometown.  I started with my home ward (church congregation), and my aunt and uncle’s ward.  There was an overwhelming response, and at Christmas I took a few hundred books to Arizona with me.  For Christmas, I sent home 4 books with each of my kids.  They were so excited about getting their own books that they could barely contain themselves.  “Ms. Keddington, we can really take these home and keep them?”  I cried as I watched their joy overflow.  And then my aunt Michelle called me and said that one of the local elementary schools wanted to donate books to our school.  My dad and sister brought down the first load of books to Arizona—no less than about 1,000 books.  We estimate that total, Reading Elementary School donated 3,000 books to my school.  I am SO SO SO SO grateful to all who donated books.  When I told my principal, she almost cried.  She could not fathom how people could be so generous.  But I wasn’t surprised. That’s just how it is in Centerville.

I also had many people from the community (and especially my ward) come into my classroom and talk to my kids about what they do for a living (or are going to school to do).  They really opened my kids eyes up to the many possibilities that are there for them—besides working cleaning houses or working odd jobs to keep the family afloat.  At the beginning of the year, none of my kids even knew what college was, but thanks to Connor, David, Brian, Jeremy, and a few others, they want to go to college.  AND, they now know how much it is going to help them in life to know 2 languages.  So thank you to these wonderful friends, too, for being generous with their time.

6.  Exercise is good for the body and the soul.  I became a runner this year.  I’m not really sure how it happened, actually.  I was never much of a runner, but I think that was more because I was always playing soccer and stuff, so I didn’t feel the need to run long distances.  But this year I started running.  I usually run with my friend, Jenny, and it is wonderful.  Sometimes we don’t go very far or very fast, but we get to chat, and I get to vent.  It is delightful.  Thanks to Jenny for running with me a few times a week.  It gave me a much needed break from work.

7.  If teachers got paid by the hour, we would be rich.  I never imagined I would be spending 12 or 13 hours at school regularly—and then going home and working some more.  But, between tutoring students in the morning, lesson planning to the exact specifications of the silly ELD laws in Arizona, leveling my classroom library, and organizing paperwork and stuff, it was not uncommon for me to get to school at 6:30 am (school starts at 8:45) and stay until 6:30 pm. 

8.  Being a teacher includes so much more than teaching academic content.  Teaching for me has meant having a pizza party to teach my students how to eat, sitting down, at a table, and using manners (I came to the realization that most of my kids never eat sitting at a table, with their families—so of course they didn’t know how to behave at lunch!).  It has meant teaching kids self-control and self-discipline.  It has meant teaching kids how to say “please” and “thank you.”  It has meant being a counselor and a shoulder to cry on when my kids have experiences that are just too much for their little hearts to handle.  It has meant crying with the students sometimes, and sometimes it has meant going home and crying for those students.  It has meant late nights and early mornings.  It has meant more to me than I ever would have imagined.

9.  6 year olds are usually excellent for one’s self-esteem.  There was not a single day that went by this year when I wasn’t interrupted during a lesson by a student raising his or her hand, just to say something like, “Ms. Keddington, you’re beautiful,” or “Ms. Keddington, you’re the nicest teacher in the whole world.”  Class was also frequently interrupted by students coming and giving me a hug for no apparent reason, which would then result in everyone wanting to give me a hug, which would sometimes result in a big group hug, which then resulted in someone getting stepped on or smashed.  (We actually had to have a rule that we could only do group hugs outside at recess.)  With that being said, sometimes they are not so good for my self-esteem.  Example:  “Ms. Keddington, are you going to have a baby?”  “No, I am not.  Do I look like it?”  “…Yeah, you do.”

10.  I am absolutely in the right place, at the right time, with the right people.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.