…I can’t stop freaking out about this statistics class. Every Thursday afternoon it’s the same thing: pain, doubling over, slightly agitated. It will be over soon.

That’s what I keep telling myself.

When the deputy superintendent beckons you to a meeting about reading data on your district, you go to it. There’s no getting out of it. Ironically, we were reading statistical data on our district and thus began my obsessing about this class that I’m naming this new gray hair for.

This week has been phenomenal in terms of work and it won’t let up soon as we’re in the homestretch of the school year. On Monday when we returned from Spring Break one of our first-year teachers announced in the office, “Only 37 more school days left!”

I used to think in those terms, but I have been teaching long enough to know that you pick your battles, and it’s not the days that get you, it’s something else entirely. I retorted, “That’s two full moons of school left.”

If you work in an industry when the natives get restless during certain times during the month, you’ll appreciate that sentiment.

My busy time right now comes in the form of testing students on a benchmark we use for reading that gives us a correct-words-per-minute number on a 1-minute timed reading. It’s time consuming, but always fun to meet students in a more intimate setting than the classroom. Even the biggest, baddest thugs in the school come to me with their heads lowered and behave well because reading level is personal. They know this. When we began telling them their level in reading there was a shift in ownership of their abilities and they became more responsive.

“What? You mean I read at a fourth grade level?!”

I’m never thrilled with the passages that we use, but students do try their best and I report back to their teachers about their scores. We had the lovliest volunteers today. Two church-going ladies who belong to the Red Hat Society. One of whom is a former teacher in my building, so it was a homecoming of sorts. She did fine until Bryan walked in. I tried to be available for him, but was with another student at the time, so she took him.

I heard him arguing with her about the words and the other lady came over to calm him down and they surrounded him in what I can only describe as a coccoon of love and compassion. He’s frustrated that he can’t read well and is also quite a handful for any teacher. Even I, Kelly who believes that students should’t be removed from the classroom, have removed him before when he deters others from learning.

By the time I was finished with my student who was testing (under some stress with the ruckus he was causing) I looked over to see him behaving in a manner quite unlike his normal hyped-up self.

And it gave me a much needed reminder about the students who cross my path every day who are difficult, unruly, without boundaries, and downright little shits on a daily basis:

Remember to love the little children.

It’s not the queasy stomach issues, is it? It’s that I need to do well to continue my work in education so I can watch what love does to the unloved, so I can refresh my compassion and get a fill-up of love for those who need it.

How about a little queasy, gas-inducing mushiness now?

Ok. I love Bryan today. I’ll remind myself of it again tomorrow.