Tuesday, May 12, 2015

My Pie-day Friday

Days that start out Cream of Wheat (blech) and end up chocolate cream pie! You know what I'm talking about. I had one of those on Friday.
A migraine headache hit me on Thursday and I barely had it under control as I took two ferries to town that evening - arriving the night before is necessary to make a morning engagement. Thankfully it was a smooth sailing, as I was already mucho nauseated. There was no way I could cancel the workshop I was presenting - it had been booked since November. On Friday morning, I awoke to an uneasy truce in my body, the headache and related effects lurking behind a thin veneer of pain killers, searching for a way through.
I arrived to find the parking lot full at 8:15 and at least one meeting underway. I met my wonderful host, Tina, and we chatted a bit before the staff gathered in her classroom.
Whenever I present a workshop, my number one goal is to encourage teachers. Being a teacher, I know how tired and beaten down you can feel by May. So, I talked about my favourite topic - Positive Conflict - and tried not to bog us down with new concepts. Perhaps it's the same in all professions, but teaching sometimes feels like a series of treadmills you can't keep up with - including programs and new initiatives we are expected to learn, embrace and implement in the course of a morning workshop. I like to think my workshops offer an opportunity to slow life down for a morning, to re-frame what we already know, and to revisit the compassion and passion we teachers can lose sight of on our treadmills. The children can become a blur sometimes, can't they?
So I started out with a joke or two, received politely, if not skeptically, as the group tried to assess whether I was funny or crazy. (No harm in a bit of both, I always say.) But as the morning progressed and my head and stomach felt better, I soon recognized that I was preaching to the choir.
Excellent comments, questions, and challenges led to great discussion and we ended the morning with the staff brainstorming strategies for specific kids. Perfect!
I have only recently started offering workshops again, but back in the day when I did a bit more of this, I was always fighting the tide of negativity that can arise out of trying to deal with impossible situations with limited resources. Since I moved to BC a decade ago, I have watched with dismay as school resources have dwindled like a river in a drought. I went into Friday's workshop fully prepared to listen to the expressions of frustration that I hear rising out of public schools across the province. (It sometimes feels as though we have become secret agents, sneaking around behind the government's back, finding ways to deliver quality care to our students in spite of them.)
But the expected wave of complaints never came. This group spent their time and energy on solutions and I was thrilled to sit and listen to them discuss their most difficult children with real affection and concern - the very things bad policy can beat right out of a teacher.
I have taken a step back from teaching - happy to be a substitute and term teacher.  From that widened perspective and slower pace, it is easier for me to see what amazing people we have in the public education system.
I went to Ripple Rock School on Friday, thinking my morning would entail more giving than taking. But as I pulled out of the parking lot on a beautiful spring day, I thought about the group sitting around the lunch table together as I left, still making plans for kids . . . and the sun felt that much warmer. My headache was gone, pushed aside by a thick layer of inspiration, topped with hope.
Chocolate cream pie! Thanks, Ripple Rock.




Monica is the author of "Thanks for chucking that at the wall instead of me."