We've taken on a lot, and somehow managed to stay in tact. Living life now as a family of 4!

My relationship with God has changed over the years, as is true for most people, I expect. Life's twists and turns and experiences have given me more nuance, more skepticism, more desire for simplicity and goodness without worrying about the how's and why's. Basically where I've ended up is that I believe in God as Creator. Nothing makes me feel better than being in Creation and I truly believe that all life and the Earth and everything we can see and observe is just too amazing to not have have a Divine aspect. And that's pretty much all I need, in addition to the Golden Rule. I'm distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of a God that intervenes in individual lives. Working with highly vulnerable people does that to you, I think. Why should I expect that if I pray, God will intervene in my life, whereas I KNOW that my little 12,13,14 years olds, who are desperately praying in all the ways they know how for better situations, are stuck dealing with garbage n...

There is a predictable pattern, around this time in the school year, where the adreneline of the beginning of the year has worn off, kids are comfortable and showing their true colours, and the to-do list grows and grows and grows, and teachers get tired. Or at least, this teacher does. I honestly forgot so much about teaching. I forgot how much OTHER stuff there is. Things like: flagging and assessing kids who have fallen through cracks, finding and reading files, keeping the people who are in charge informed of how kids need support, emailing and setting up meetings with parents, finding and building new resources and units and tweaking old ones, talking to other teachers about kids, talking to kids to find out why they are mad/sad/unproductive/anxious and what we are going to do about it. Notice how none of that is actually teaching or marking or even cajoling. I forgot how intense and how much energy CAJOLING takes. Really, teaching is mostly cajoling, I think. Cajoling to get ...