The week of prescribed paddlings ended, explosively. All the paddlings delivered as promised. When the time came for the last one, I was bitter, resentful, enraged, hurt. My anger boiled over and I exploded. Broke all the rules. Raged and stormed and flailed.
He simply held me and let the storm expend itself. When I was done and exhausted, the penalty was extracted in full. That there were antecedents for the outburst is not important. That the penalty has been paid is.
The marks and bruises will fade in time. The week is finished. I am calmer. We will go on.
swan
6/11/2006
6/06/2006
Eeeeeek!
Some people are afraid of monsters under the bed, or of terrorists, or of kidnappers. Some people are afraid of fire or heights or... T is afraid of snakes. For me, it is spiders. I am simply terrified of the critters. I know part of it is that my mother, as a strategy to protect us all from the black widow spiders that are common in Colorado, where I grew up, worked hard to instill a deep fear of all spiders in us as children. With me, it took.
I've come to a place, as an adult, where I can usually cope with the normal, run of the mill spider in the house. The sort of little, bitty spider that comes in, and is pretty clearly harmless. I know that there are those who believe that a house spider is maybe even sort of helpful, but the little ones have come to seem to me mostly a pest -- definately not a welcome guest.
To be sure, any spider that is the size of SPENDING CHANGE, and walking around in places (like the bathroom) where I am likely to be mostly naked, barefoot, and sleepy, is not going to be welcome. I am figuring such a beastie has just volunteered to be dead, not to put too fine a point on it.
So, this morning, when my half awake self was attacked in the bathroom by the spider from hell, I reacted calmly and reasonably like any other sane, sensible, mature adult person would. I screamed like was about to be murdered, and climbed up on the bathroom counter. Of course, I did. Master, still mostly asleep in the bedroom, attempted to come to my rescue, but the now terrified spider had already beat a hasty retreat under the shelf that holds the hand towels. He moved the shelf, but no spider appeared. Shrugging, Master trudged back to the bedroom. What did I expect?
Not at all reassured, I proceeded to try and get on with my morning preparations, while keeping a wary eye on the vicinity of the shelf, where I just KNEW the evil spider was lying in wait... Sure enough, it didn't take long for the monster to make its move. As soon as my pulse had sort of returned to something sort of normal, the spider came scampering out to terrorize me even further. I shrieked again and leapt up onto the edge of the tub.
This time, Master was more awake, and the spider was more bold. Spidey just stood there in the middle of the bathroom snarling at me as I danced back and forth on the edge of the tub, fussing and pleading for Master to come kill it. Which He did this time, mashing the little devil into a crumpled heap of arachnid arms and legs. The carcass was duly scooped up and flushed away, and my shaking, teary, mature, sensible, self was settled and soothed so that I could go on preparing for the day...
Eeeeeeek!
swan
Meter Stick
When you close a school, there is just a whole lot of stuff -- the kind of equipment and mess that accumulates in the business of teaching children to DO things. I've taught mathematics and science and social studies for years now, and so, sitting in the corner of my classroom, there was this prodigious collection of meter sticks and yard sticks. Most of them will travel all neatly bundled to my new school to continue life in another classroom, where other students will use them to measure assorted bits and pieces of their world (and more than likely conduct unauthorized mock battles whenever they believe they can get away with it).
However, one night a few weeks ago, as I was agitating away about all that needed doing to make this all occur, and ticking away my fussy little lists of things to do, I happened to mention the meter sticks... Instantly, Master latched onto the notion, like a dog with a bone, and insisted that He needed to have some meter sticks. I knew in that instant that I'd made a tactical error, but the die was cast. So, yesterday, as I packed and sorted and bundled and cleaned, I selected two suitable and sturdy meter sticks, and brought them home to Him.
He was thrilled, and immediately and enthusiastically applied the beastly things to my backside. Somewhere between a cane and a paddle is the realm of the meter stick. They have the whippiness of a cane with more heft and EDGES! I was sure it was cutting me with every stroke (it wasn't -- didn't). It just made me want to shriek, and was even worse because in my head was the knowledge that I'd brought it home myself. Nevermind that I had no real choice; the fact that I'd carried it home with my own hands made me furious.
And the meter stick is humiliating. Not a smoothly crafted, professionally made implement meant for spanking, but a simple measuring stick, dragged from my classroom hours before, and now sitting rudely in the corner of the bedroom for the sole purpose of inflicting pain on me. What was I thinking? Not thinking. Just obeying. Doing as I was told. Because I was told.
And there it sits. In broad daylight today. And there will undoubtably be meter sticks in my classrooms. Will they ever again look the same to me?
swan
6/05/2006
Passages
While sue is processing the passage of her wolf cubs to high shcool, (described in the post which follows this) she will awaken in the morning to June 6, 2006. This is the day that commemorates 4 years of our being together. June 6 2002 she followed my directive and uprooted her life in Colorado, left her career there teaching in the school she'd attended as a girl, traveled to Ohio and became ours. T gained a sister heart. I gained a love that has filled my life with such huge joy.
What a four years it's been. We've experienced love, joy, travel, professional accomplishment, cutting, SM, BDSM conferences, freinds, losses, a knee replcaement, lasik surgery, cataract surgery, an an appendectomy, hysterectomy, two hernia repairs, (well one's to occur before the end of the month) new condo's, a fire in the new condo's, and on and on and on. Oh yes should I mention a Blog:) It has never been dull. It has been glorious, tedious, wonderful, challenging, and I could not imagine my/our life any other way. Nor would I want to.
I love you my spice:)
Mores & mores:)
Mine Always and All Ways:)
Tom
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.
What a four years it's been. We've experienced love, joy, travel, professional accomplishment, cutting, SM, BDSM conferences, freinds, losses, a knee replcaement, lasik surgery, cataract surgery, an an appendectomy, hysterectomy, two hernia repairs, (well one's to occur before the end of the month) new condo's, a fire in the new condo's, and on and on and on. Oh yes should I mention a Blog:) It has never been dull. It has been glorious, tedious, wonderful, challenging, and I could not imagine my/our life any other way. Nor would I want to.
I love you my spice:)
Mores & mores:)
Mine Always and All Ways:)
Tom
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.
Special days
Today and tomorrow are overlayed not only with some professinally busy calendars, but with a number of important passages.
Tonight is swan's final graduation of her beloved wolf cubs.....her pack of eighth graders who came to her first in the fifth grade when she and took them to our state's capital and empowered them to testify before the House of Representatives Finance Committe regarding the state's budget for people with disabilities (Now that was a social studies project:)!! Then they became "hers" for the last three years. They arrived with a reputation. They were unteachable, incorridgeable: a whole class of "bad boys" and "bad girls." She would not hear of it. Childern are not in control in her world, and not learning and not growing and becoming well is simply forbidden. She began her magic where she always does. She taught them "Basic German Sheppard." Once they mastered, "come, go, sit, stay, stop, listen, be quiet, etc." the basics of life with her, she began to weave her web. Not only did everyone else seem to "know" these were bad kids, they too had internalizwed this "knowledge." Much of their first year together was spent unlearning that. She told them they were good, they were valuable, that she knew it and she would prove it to them. She told them they were good to each other........and insisted it would be true. She told them they could be civilized and they were. They were feral children. Children who had been failed by the adults in their lives. Children who had not had adults who would make them secure. Adults who let them be in control. There is nothing more frightening for a child than to not have adults in their life who control them and lead them to growth. Sue, for the last three years, has given them this gift. They are children who behave. They are children who have replaced horrible behavior with appropriate fun and learning. They are a class that has come to include some students who are going onto prestigious private high schools on full ride scholarships, having blown the top off of admissions tests. They are children who have become normal eighth graders. Thus, they are not children who are gushingly demonstrative of their affection for their adults. But they are graduating and they are so remarkably unlike what everyone expected of them four years ago. Everyone except my swan. They were anticipated to be a disaster. They are one of the most accomplished classes ever to leave that school.....the final graduating class to ever leave that school.
You, my beautiful swan, have given them back their youth. You are, for most of them, the only adult who has not failed them. When you tear up, as I know you will when they graduate tonight, feel the pride you so richly deserve for the gift you've given them, and know how wildly proud t and I are of you and of your huge gift for creating growth and health in children.
I love you so much:)
Mine always and all ways:)
Tom
Go confidently n the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.
Tonight is swan's final graduation of her beloved wolf cubs.....her pack of eighth graders who came to her first in the fifth grade when she and took them to our state's capital and empowered them to testify before the House of Representatives Finance Committe regarding the state's budget for people with disabilities (Now that was a social studies project:)!! Then they became "hers" for the last three years. They arrived with a reputation. They were unteachable, incorridgeable: a whole class of "bad boys" and "bad girls." She would not hear of it. Childern are not in control in her world, and not learning and not growing and becoming well is simply forbidden. She began her magic where she always does. She taught them "Basic German Sheppard." Once they mastered, "come, go, sit, stay, stop, listen, be quiet, etc." the basics of life with her, she began to weave her web. Not only did everyone else seem to "know" these were bad kids, they too had internalizwed this "knowledge." Much of their first year together was spent unlearning that. She told them they were good, they were valuable, that she knew it and she would prove it to them. She told them they were good to each other........and insisted it would be true. She told them they could be civilized and they were. They were feral children. Children who had been failed by the adults in their lives. Children who had not had adults who would make them secure. Adults who let them be in control. There is nothing more frightening for a child than to not have adults in their life who control them and lead them to growth. Sue, for the last three years, has given them this gift. They are children who behave. They are children who have replaced horrible behavior with appropriate fun and learning. They are a class that has come to include some students who are going onto prestigious private high schools on full ride scholarships, having blown the top off of admissions tests. They are children who have become normal eighth graders. Thus, they are not children who are gushingly demonstrative of their affection for their adults. But they are graduating and they are so remarkably unlike what everyone expected of them four years ago. Everyone except my swan. They were anticipated to be a disaster. They are one of the most accomplished classes ever to leave that school.....the final graduating class to ever leave that school.
You, my beautiful swan, have given them back their youth. You are, for most of them, the only adult who has not failed them. When you tear up, as I know you will when they graduate tonight, feel the pride you so richly deserve for the gift you've given them, and know how wildly proud t and I are of you and of your huge gift for creating growth and health in children.
I love you so much:)
Mine always and all ways:)
Tom
Go confidently n the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.
6/04/2006
The swirling has had at me again. I know I need to settle down and simply trust that it will all be fine in time. I know I need to trust that Master has found us a really good doctor, and that the doctor will, with enough time, show me the path out of the darkness. I know.
And still I feel so uncertain; so frightened; so lost; and so terribly angry. That swirl of emotions makes for a wicked stew that boils over at the drop of a hat. It is particularly difficult for me to hang on and keep the lid on things when in session. I go into it with the resolve that I will keep my mouth shut, and simply be good, but the anger (especially the anger) is so close to the surface all the time, that a little pain pushes me right over the edge to rage, and then the monsters come banging out of the closet with a roar. Not good. Except that it gets the NEWS out where He can hear it I suppose.
Yesterday was a day where I just simmered from the earliest moment that my eyes opened through a day that seemed to be a series of frustrations strung together in a string. I just did not seem to be able to accomplish any of the things that I set out to do. I knew that I was feeling prickly, and tried to avoid contact as much as possible, seeking to minimize the potential for conflict. It was as if every square inch of me was covered in raw nerve endings... I wanted, but did not want -- I was purely a mess. Withdrawn and needy all at once.
Eventually, in the late afternoon, He pulled me into the bedroom for a spanking. I could feel the anger rising, but said nothing. Simply went along. But, He knows me really well. We've been together awhile. So, there were restraints. Probably a good thing. Even as He began with His hand, I could feel myself beginning to spin into the darkness; could tell that the tides were rising that would carry me into deep waters. I begged for Him to go slow, but He was impatient, wanting to know what we were waiting for. I couldn't tell Him. I didn't have any answer to give Him.
When the first cracks of the strap landed the anger exploded. I was immediately furious. I struggled against Him, against the restraints, against the strap. I shrieked, I swore, I declared that I hated Him, hated this, wanted to leave, wanted to simply go away, didn't want to do this... None of that had any effect at all, except to harden His determination to take me where He would.
Eventually, I broke, sobbing: "Why did you let them do this to me? Why did you let them do this to me? Why? Why? Why?
And: "You promised me it would be alright, and now it isn't ever going to be alright, and now you are looking for someone else, and I AM SO MAD AT YOU!"
Exhausted, shaken to my soul, terrified, horrified at the revelation of the secret I'd carried all these weeks, I lay weeping and gasping, unable to muster anymore energy. I was sure I'd ended my life in that moment.
He drew me to Him, held me tightly, rocked me until the sobs quieted, and then began to talk me through the sense of untangling the emotional knot that I'd gotten myself into these last weeks. He told me things I knew: that He'd believed what medical professionals had told us both -- that the outcome would be much better than what we've experienced with all of this; that He wished He'd understood sooner that my surgeon didn't understand the complexities of this or He'd have moved sooner to get me to another doctor; that He was convinced that this specialist WOULD find the answers -- given time; That we would get through this together, and be fine.
Then He backed up and reiterated things that I needed desperately to hear from Him: I am His; He's not looking for someone else; I'm not leaving Him; He won't hear that from me. His diagnosis: I am feeling disconnected and uncertain of our connection. I am not sure of Him. I am having trouble "sensing" His presence with me; His love for me; His place in my life; I need more regular reminding of our bond.
So... Out came the hairbrush paddle. For anyone who doesn't know this particular beast, the hairbrush paddle is a creation from The Toybag. It is solid oak, heavy, smooth, and absolutely unforgiving. It is, as its name implies, exactly like a hairbrush without any bristles. I hate it with a passion. The prescription for now is that I'll be paddled daily for a week along with corner time, and that this routine will keep me more clearly mindful of who I am and to whom I belong. He seems convinced that keeping me continually with a sore and bruised butt, and in constant anticipation of daily paddlings will limit the tendency to crank up into emotional hurricanes.
He knows me well, and I have no option but to bend to His will. I'm sure He is most likely right. Whatever, I think about it, He will take me through it, and it will take me a week closer to what comes next. At least I am no longer angry about a secret I cannot share.
swan
6/03/2006
The Ending
Two more days.
There are only two more days with children, and then the school where I have taught for the last four years will close its doors forever. The last eighth grade class will graduate Monday night, and all the others will be gone on Tuesday afternoon. And... if you walked through our hallways, and you didn't know that -- you most likely would not be able to tell that this was our reality. The walls are still covered with the most vibrant displays of student art; science projects are on display here and there; computer generated reports on a wide variety of topics are posted in every nook and cranny; we've done programs and concerts and the usual end of the year field day and picnics and what not -- all just as if there were no FINAL END looming...
Final school days are always difficult for me. I find it hard to navigate the swirl of emotions that the ending of a school year brings: the exhaustion mingles with the relief and the exhileration and the sense of accomplishment and celebration to spin me into an emotional tumble that leaves me frequently teary-eyed and shaken. I am simply a feeler. It is how I do what I do. This year, all of that is magnified by the enormous realization that when I let these children go for the last time, there will be no coming back... because, as a teacher, that coming back is one of the big payoffs for the work that is done so much of the time on sheer faith...
Teaching is a work of heart. We plant and nurture, weed and water, and tend in metaphoric gardens where we hardly ever get to see the harvest. The growing happens for only tiny spaces of time where we actually get to see any of it. Almost all of the actual fruit of our labor occurs outside of our vision. Oh, it is true that I may get to see whether or not a student can perform some task well enough to "give it back" to me on an exam. They may achieve the expected levels of competency in terms of the content and curriculum. This is expected, and I'm darn good at delivering the content and achieving the outcomes. But I teach children, not just subjects. The "product" is a fully fledged, working, breathing, decent, healthy human person -- not a "widget." That takes lots of time; lots of hands; lots of hearts...
Every now and then, when I can stay in place for a bit, and they can grow for awhile, I get to see just a bit of what might come to pass--
This last week, at field day, I had the opportunity to spend a few minutes talking with J. She was an eighth grade student of mine last year. I've known her, and taught her since she was in the 5th grade. She's has diagnosed learning differences, an Individual Education Plan (IEP), and as long as I knew her, school was hard. She worked with a kind of diligence and dedication that is rare in one so young. Mathematics was something that was her strength, but when we got to the higher levels, and the topics became more abstract and "squirmier," she began to get a little angry with me by times. It was as if even her trusted and reliable math had suddenly turned on her. Still, she would hold me to the fire day after day; chasing me down with continual questions and the demand that I explain over and over and differently and better until she would get it somehow. She and I worked each other to a frazzle on more than one day. She never quit and neither did I. We kept on believing in each other, and on the night she graduated from the eighth grade, I was proud to give her the Math Achievement award. When she started high school, the counselors there placed her in what they termed "College Option" courses. This is a track for students that might go to college, but also may not. There is no real expectation that that will occur. She stayed in College Option math classes for her first semester, and was earning such high marks that she insisted that they move her up to "College Prep" level courses. With her parents backing, she won the day, and finished the year in College Prep mathematics. Not only did she move up a to the higher level classes, but she did so well there that she was able to be exempted from her end of the year exams due to her overall grades for the year. She was so proud when she told me... but not nearly as proud as I was of her -- for her learning, but even more for her confidence and ferocity and joy.
Thursday as we dismissed for the day and the eighth grade walked out the door waving goodbye for the last time. I felt the tears come. This is the group that has made me just crazy for the last few weeks. It is always true of 8th graders at the end of the school year. They get done before it is over with; become totally self-absorbed, nasty, ugly, ornery. By the time they leave, long before, we are ready to have them go. And yet, and yet, when they go, I weep. This group especially -- are my wolves. This group when they came into my care were so feral. So badly parented, mostly. So wild and so needy. I told them, day after day after day, that they were special, good, kind, better than anyone suspected. I told them that people had underestimated them, and that they were destined to do good things. I told them that I knew that they were not the worst class, but the best. I believed in them fiercely, until they finally, reluctantly, began to believe in themselves. When they leave us, it will be to head off to some of our city's finest schools with a whole passle of impressive scholaships and awards. They have made us proud. They are still a pretty feral bunch, but they are far from the worst. They are my wolves, but they are a beautiful bunch of young animals.
In two days, I will let go of M. He's another one that I've invested an awful lot of heart into. I first "met" M when he wasn't even really mine yet. At the time, he was a brand new 5th grader in our school, and I was the 7th grade homeroom teacher, with the room across the hall and just down a bit from his classroom. M has Asperger's, a disability that impacts the ability to interpret other people's body language and facial responses and emotions. Asperger's folks are not able to interact socially the way most of the rest of us do. They are often very bright, but can seem very odd to the rest of the world. But I raised my own Asperger's kid, so I had a bit of an inside track with M. Every afternoon, at dismissal time, as M would hang outside the door of the 5th grade room, I'd play a silly game with him about his being in charge of getting his teacher organized and ready to go (it's a long story -- you would have to have been there). The whole thing appealed to his weird sense of humor, and didn't really require much from him in terms of connecting to me. It became a way for me to engage him, gently. When M came to me as a student the following year, I already had a basis for continuing the relationship with him. He continued to rely on me for cues about how to interpret the increasingly complex social world of junior high. I'm really not sure how much math I've taught M -- he performs erratically depending on how he feels about connecting to the rest of us on any given day. This is the nature of his disability. I do know that when things get intense emotionally or socially, I can almost always be sure that I will see M's eyes searching for mine from across the room -- looking for affirmation and some kind of guidance. For a student who nearly always avoids direct eye contact, that single act of seeking contact is enormously intimate, and telling. He knows that I will give him a nod or a smile or a shake of the head that will let him know if he has got the situation figured out correctly -- if he is "doing the right thing." He always checks with me. For M, I worry. Who will be there for him in his new school? Who will he look to when he needs to check? Will he have enough of me in his head to be able to match up the situations and get the affirmations he needs? I want to believe he's ready to go on and do it by himself. I want to believe that the universe will send him someone who will know just exactly what he needs next... I need to trust that will happen... Because, ready or not, I have to let him go.
I have to let them all go, and I am so not ready.
I'd spend this weekend telling all their stories. If I could. I'd write to each and all and tell them how wonderfully and powerfully made they are. But that is selfish. I've left my mark. I've sown and tended. The work is done in this field. Time to move on.
swan
There are only two more days with children, and then the school where I have taught for the last four years will close its doors forever. The last eighth grade class will graduate Monday night, and all the others will be gone on Tuesday afternoon. And... if you walked through our hallways, and you didn't know that -- you most likely would not be able to tell that this was our reality. The walls are still covered with the most vibrant displays of student art; science projects are on display here and there; computer generated reports on a wide variety of topics are posted in every nook and cranny; we've done programs and concerts and the usual end of the year field day and picnics and what not -- all just as if there were no FINAL END looming...
Final school days are always difficult for me. I find it hard to navigate the swirl of emotions that the ending of a school year brings: the exhaustion mingles with the relief and the exhileration and the sense of accomplishment and celebration to spin me into an emotional tumble that leaves me frequently teary-eyed and shaken. I am simply a feeler. It is how I do what I do. This year, all of that is magnified by the enormous realization that when I let these children go for the last time, there will be no coming back... because, as a teacher, that coming back is one of the big payoffs for the work that is done so much of the time on sheer faith...
Teaching is a work of heart. We plant and nurture, weed and water, and tend in metaphoric gardens where we hardly ever get to see the harvest. The growing happens for only tiny spaces of time where we actually get to see any of it. Almost all of the actual fruit of our labor occurs outside of our vision. Oh, it is true that I may get to see whether or not a student can perform some task well enough to "give it back" to me on an exam. They may achieve the expected levels of competency in terms of the content and curriculum. This is expected, and I'm darn good at delivering the content and achieving the outcomes. But I teach children, not just subjects. The "product" is a fully fledged, working, breathing, decent, healthy human person -- not a "widget." That takes lots of time; lots of hands; lots of hearts...
Every now and then, when I can stay in place for a bit, and they can grow for awhile, I get to see just a bit of what might come to pass--
This last week, at field day, I had the opportunity to spend a few minutes talking with J. She was an eighth grade student of mine last year. I've known her, and taught her since she was in the 5th grade. She's has diagnosed learning differences, an Individual Education Plan (IEP), and as long as I knew her, school was hard. She worked with a kind of diligence and dedication that is rare in one so young. Mathematics was something that was her strength, but when we got to the higher levels, and the topics became more abstract and "squirmier," she began to get a little angry with me by times. It was as if even her trusted and reliable math had suddenly turned on her. Still, she would hold me to the fire day after day; chasing me down with continual questions and the demand that I explain over and over and differently and better until she would get it somehow. She and I worked each other to a frazzle on more than one day. She never quit and neither did I. We kept on believing in each other, and on the night she graduated from the eighth grade, I was proud to give her the Math Achievement award. When she started high school, the counselors there placed her in what they termed "College Option" courses. This is a track for students that might go to college, but also may not. There is no real expectation that that will occur. She stayed in College Option math classes for her first semester, and was earning such high marks that she insisted that they move her up to "College Prep" level courses. With her parents backing, she won the day, and finished the year in College Prep mathematics. Not only did she move up a to the higher level classes, but she did so well there that she was able to be exempted from her end of the year exams due to her overall grades for the year. She was so proud when she told me... but not nearly as proud as I was of her -- for her learning, but even more for her confidence and ferocity and joy.
Thursday as we dismissed for the day and the eighth grade walked out the door waving goodbye for the last time. I felt the tears come. This is the group that has made me just crazy for the last few weeks. It is always true of 8th graders at the end of the school year. They get done before it is over with; become totally self-absorbed, nasty, ugly, ornery. By the time they leave, long before, we are ready to have them go. And yet, and yet, when they go, I weep. This group especially -- are my wolves. This group when they came into my care were so feral. So badly parented, mostly. So wild and so needy. I told them, day after day after day, that they were special, good, kind, better than anyone suspected. I told them that people had underestimated them, and that they were destined to do good things. I told them that I knew that they were not the worst class, but the best. I believed in them fiercely, until they finally, reluctantly, began to believe in themselves. When they leave us, it will be to head off to some of our city's finest schools with a whole passle of impressive scholaships and awards. They have made us proud. They are still a pretty feral bunch, but they are far from the worst. They are my wolves, but they are a beautiful bunch of young animals.
In two days, I will let go of M. He's another one that I've invested an awful lot of heart into. I first "met" M when he wasn't even really mine yet. At the time, he was a brand new 5th grader in our school, and I was the 7th grade homeroom teacher, with the room across the hall and just down a bit from his classroom. M has Asperger's, a disability that impacts the ability to interpret other people's body language and facial responses and emotions. Asperger's folks are not able to interact socially the way most of the rest of us do. They are often very bright, but can seem very odd to the rest of the world. But I raised my own Asperger's kid, so I had a bit of an inside track with M. Every afternoon, at dismissal time, as M would hang outside the door of the 5th grade room, I'd play a silly game with him about his being in charge of getting his teacher organized and ready to go (it's a long story -- you would have to have been there). The whole thing appealed to his weird sense of humor, and didn't really require much from him in terms of connecting to me. It became a way for me to engage him, gently. When M came to me as a student the following year, I already had a basis for continuing the relationship with him. He continued to rely on me for cues about how to interpret the increasingly complex social world of junior high. I'm really not sure how much math I've taught M -- he performs erratically depending on how he feels about connecting to the rest of us on any given day. This is the nature of his disability. I do know that when things get intense emotionally or socially, I can almost always be sure that I will see M's eyes searching for mine from across the room -- looking for affirmation and some kind of guidance. For a student who nearly always avoids direct eye contact, that single act of seeking contact is enormously intimate, and telling. He knows that I will give him a nod or a smile or a shake of the head that will let him know if he has got the situation figured out correctly -- if he is "doing the right thing." He always checks with me. For M, I worry. Who will be there for him in his new school? Who will he look to when he needs to check? Will he have enough of me in his head to be able to match up the situations and get the affirmations he needs? I want to believe he's ready to go on and do it by himself. I want to believe that the universe will send him someone who will know just exactly what he needs next... I need to trust that will happen... Because, ready or not, I have to let him go.
I have to let them all go, and I am so not ready.
I'd spend this weekend telling all their stories. If I could. I'd write to each and all and tell them how wonderfully and powerfully made they are. But that is selfish. I've left my mark. I've sown and tended. The work is done in this field. Time to move on.
swan
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