April

April brings with it not only snow showers (which we’ve amassed quite a few lately) but also showers of depression among educators.  It is traditionally one of the most difficult months during the year in which students act up, wreaking havoc upon even the best laid lesson plans.  Attention spans of both teachers and students seem incredibly shortened, as well as tempers.  As an educator, I feel I have slighted my students somehow, that maybe they would have received a better education had they been in someone else’s classroom.  I have students whom I wish had been further along than they are and whom I feel powerless to keep from falling further behind.  And it is in the midst of these struggles that I find myself wondering what it will be like in another country.  Obviously there will be weaknesses, but will they be the same as I see in America?  Do kids “fall through the cracks” like they do here?  Do teachers struggle with the same issues regarding funding and support like we do here?  I do not delude myself with thoughts of a utopian school where all my current woes and strifes will be lifted and replaced with hour-long lunches and smiling students who are desperate to learn all I have to teach.  Yet I still find myself preoccupied with hopes for a better system.

My plane ticket has been purchased—I depart from SEATAC at 6:57pm on Sunday, August 7^th.