I cried happy tears about 10 times last week. Mostly because I experienced so many heart warming moments intermixed in all the chaos and frustration, but also because I am straight up exhausted. My body has made many failed attempts at communicating to my stubborn self to slow down… and here I am… day 4 with the flu!
I can finally look at a computer screen again– the little things 🙂
Last week, my caseload grew larger (as it feels like it does every week) and nonetheless I was presented with opportunities to model acceptance and forgiveness to students.
I now have two students who have a very unhealthy, aggressive, and targeted type experience together. There has been a lot of concern about how these two would interact together and long conversations about how to keep them apart. Well, here I am with unpopular opinions as always… and I don’t think we should ever keep kids apart. For time to heal, absolutely. Forever? No way. What is forever (or time spanning over a year) actually teaching them?
We have to teach kids, with differences and negative experiences of each other, to co-exist and learn how to get along. If we don’t, it’s going to be year after year of placement struggles, uncertainty, and fear. Plus, with early intervention being key, the younger they are, the more powerful the repair can be.
I’m not going to go into too much detail, but after multiple conversations, I was able to share something with one of the students involved. “I asked (student) who she felt hasn’t been very kind to her. At first she said your name and then stopped and said, “actually (student) is really nice to me now.” When I was telling the other student this story, he started crying and said, “I didn’t think (student) would ever want to be friends with me…” I explained to him they weren’t there yet, but she notices that he’s growing and working hard on making kind choices to every one.
Fast forward to the next day and when she walked in, he asked her how her day was and they shared a seat and played “morning brain games” together. Later, when she was problem solving with myself and another teacher, he wanted to stay with us to make sure she felt safe.
Kids are powerful and forgiving and strong. All I can think about is how can I cultivate more opportunities for students to repair their relationships together and learn how to co-exist in a system that thinks it’s easiest for safety to keep them apart? Watching their acceptance of each other leaves me feeling full of hope… something I’ve been struggling to find the last couple of weeks.
tuesday details
jumpsuit: old navy (xs-p) | sweater: target (xs) – similar | shoes: old navy (7.5) | earrings: nordstrom | phone case: forever 21
wednesday details
top: old, similar | jeans: gap (size 24) | shoes: forever 21 (7.5) | earrings: stella + dot
thursday details
top: target (xs) | jean jacket: old navy (xs) | pants: old navy (24p) | earrings: nordstrom| shoes: converse
friday details
top: nordstrom rack (xs) | jeans: nordstrom rack (24) | shoes: old navy (7.5) | book: amazon | earrings: j.crew factory
with kindness | ashley
