Day 82: Tuesday. Today was my busy day. I taught 3 classes in the morning, hour break, 2 classes in the afternoon, hour break, contract negotiations, hour break, school committee meeting. It was nuts. Especially because we were tasked with talking about race, racism, and current events in each class by our principal. Needless to say I was nervous. I was up late Monday night thinking about what I would do with my 5 classes, what do I say, how do I make it authentic and how the heck do I engage kids in a conversation on google meet when most of them mute their mic and video? I didn't sleep well.
I woke up anxious and had nervous sweat all day (gross, I know TMI!) My first class started at 9:40 and I told them we were going to pivot today to discuss events of this past weekend with George Floyd's murder and have a conversation about racism in our country. The students didn't say anything. I spoke from my experience, saying that I'm not an expert and I'm coming into my own knowledge and acceptance of my self as a white woman in society. I explained how I recently took a class this past fall that dealt with this (IDEAS 1 for those educators out there) and how my eyes were opened to my own privilege as a white person and how I can help to have a voice and stand up for those that are not as privileged as me. But that I still had a lot of work to do on this path. I then showed the students a TED Talk by African American Artist Damon Davis. Then we talked about how we, in this class, this digital art class, as artists have a powerful weapon to wield - our artwork. Artists are most important to get the message out in times like these. Then a student spoke up and it blew up in my face - this student wanted to know why we were talking about this as it is a political issue and went down a road that was not fun. I sat there and calmly explained to him that this is not a political issue, a man has died and it was due to his skin color, and how we are all humans and we need to start making change so that there are not these barriers for people of color. This went back and forth and on and on for 20 minutes. It was so hard for me to do. The next period went so much better. We had a wonderful conversation. Same with the third period. Then I had lunch and my nerves were still on edge. I knew I still had to do this two more times. And I did. The afternoon classes did not speak at all. It was hard in a different way. The students had been speaking about this all day, in each class. So they may have been burnt out. It was emotionally exhausting. But it was so good to begin this conversation. I will get better at this the more I do it. From there I had an hour to see my kids and my husband.
Then I hoped on to a school committee contract negotiation meeting. This was also very intense. And that's all I can say about this due to confidentiality.
Then we had an hour to make dinner. JP made an amazing tomato soup and grilled cheese with our homemade french bread! During this time Naomi was climbing a tree that was infested with bugs that of course were crawling all over her. So we ran her home and stuck her right in the tub.
I think jumped on to zoom for the school committee meeting while JP put the kids to bed. Finally at 10:30 I was done for the day. I don't know what the rest of my family did today so I can't write about it here. But at 10:30 JP and I played a new game (that we got for the kids) until 1am! It was a great way to end a crazy emotionally draining day.
Day 83: Wednesday. The kids got up this morning and did their work. Juliet is reading books on the iPad each day. Naomi is zooming with her teacher and doing her google classroom. I had a department meeting and then dealt with all the paperwork for the chicken coop! Ugh I have to get a map of the property with dimensions of the property lines, where the water lines come in, where the coop will go and how far it is from abutters 100 ft away. It seems a bit nuts. Plus they don't provide the map! Needless to say I was back and forth with the Health Department ALL DAY doing this. JP helped me measure with our 100ft tape measure this evening.
Nana and Baba came over today late in the afternoon. I had a meeting at 3:30 - pretty much right when the arrived. So I didn't actually get to see them much. I hear they brought ice cream and had a nice ice cream sundae with the kids! Nana left for the cape right as I was finishing up and Baba hung around to help us hang up a swing for the kids on a super high branch! We thought we'd just throw a rope up there with something heavy tied to it. Turns our that is hard and it didn't work. We then used a fishing rod to cast a weight up and over the branch, tied a rope to the fishing line and pulled it over. We did this once and then the knot I tied let go! So we had to cast it again. It took a few tries but we did it! Baba tied it off to another tree in the poison ivy field in the woods. The kids had a blast swinging on it this evening. Thanks Baba and JP for helping hang it up!!
Some illuminating words from Scott Woods
Casting up over the branch!
Pull!
Swing fail!
Good thing I know how to use Photoshop!
Sorry this post is mostly about me here, I didn't see the kids for the last two days so I can't report out what they are doing! This was a cathartic exercise writing this post after the last two days I had. So if you're still reading, thanks for reading and listening to my crazy rambling thoughts!
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