April 10, 2017: regrouping

This is me, doing my teacher thing and laminating new phonics games at 11:30 PM.  While crying.  I'm not always that stereotypically emotional girl, but when I am, there's no stopping it.  Today it hit hard and I cried 3 different times during the day.  We had a meeting where we analyzed data from our classes, and my data was not great.  Looking solely at the graphs, it looks like my students are not learning much from me.  While there has been observable growth in the classroom, it isn't showing in my hard data.  While I know that data isn't everything, no teacher wants to look ineffective, even if it's just on paper.

It isn't a huge secret that I have struggled with my moods and depression this past 8 months.  When that stuff hits, it's nice to hold on to something that I can control.  This time around, school seemed to be my safe place.  I was in control of my classroom.  I was doing really well this year.  Unlike last year when I had no idea how to teach first grade and was drowning, this year school was where I could relax, be myself, enjoy the kids, do my thing and do it well.   So when I was sitting in a meeting comparing my data with the data of my coworkers and seeing that mine is coming up short, I did what any rational human does and just cried about it.  Alone in my classroom closet.  Not proud of that.

Today was a really powerful reminder for me that while it is good to care deeply about my job, my identity is not in my profession.  My identity is in Christ.  Nothing else matters as much.