One of those days

Today was one of those days. It started with a 40 minute walk with a heavy bag of dirt in my backpack. When I walked into my first class of the day and 2 children were hiding behind the door, one had climbed up behind the chalkboard, and another plugged in the piano and started to play, I knew I had my work cut out for me. I managed to get them all back on task, participating, and even having fun. I thought maybe I'd made it safely, when one child exploded because of something another child said. I spent the last 20 minutes of class in the hall, trying to calm that child down and restraining him from going back into class to beat up the kid he was mad at. He finally calmed down enough to follow directions and stayed with another teacher for awhile working until he was able to be in the same classroom as the other student without fighting.

The rest of the day was uneventful, until the last class of the day. It was beautiful and sunny, and we were planting seeds for science class, so I decided to take them outside. Everyone was happy and excited. We went back inside to stick half our plants in the dark and half our plants in the sun for a plant growth experiment, and then I sat them down to read a short book about plants. Two children wouldn't stop insulting each other from across the room while I read. When I spoke to one of them, he agreed to stay in the classroom quietly rather than leave. The other student wouldn't agree to leaving the class or to being quiet in class, so he lost the privilege of taking his plant home with him. He got mad and threw another plant across the room, leaving potting soil streaking the walls and the bulletin board that I just changed yesterday. Another teacher very kindly stayed to supervise as he cleaned the mess he made and I took the other kids to the park for the last 15 minutes of the day until the bus came.

As I walked back home today, I felt so weary and discouraged. The thought of going back tomorrow to work with the same students and quite possibly face the same sort of behavior problems was overwhelming.

And then, I opened my e-mail and saw this

It doesn't matter how bad your day was,

just keep walking with your head up like nothing happened.

Tomorrow's a new day!

And then, talking to a friend, she reminded me that, "you don't have to be ready, just willing and God can use that and prosper that. His grace is enough and he brings new mercies each day!"

Good thing tomorrow is a new day and that God's mercy is new every morning. Hopefully tomorrow will be a different sort of day, but even if it isn't, God will give me the strength I need to get through it, and three months from now, when things are overwhelming and I look back on this day, I'll realize how far I've come, and how far my students have come. Because, the truth is, it's the first time in months that my students have hidden before class, and it used to be an almost daily occurrence. That, despite the fact that I wasn't in the room with my students while I was in the hall working with my angry kiddo , they still did as I asked them too and played a phonics game. That, even when one student's plant was thrown against the wall, he didn't react in anger. That I received apologies today from 3 students whose behavior was not what it should have been. So, even when I'm overwhelmed, I can look and see progress. And I know they will continue to progress.