People are Surprising

I am constantly amazed by people.  Normally not in a good way.  I get a LOT of emails from parents that think I am little more than a servant.  I get a lot of  "Send home...."  Not a lot of please or thank you.  They ask me to do time intensive tasks, when my day is planned down to the minute.  I don't have time to take an unscheduled potty break, let alone get all the papers together that their student decided to crumple in the backpack and then throw away instead of turning them in.  I'm sorry that your student didn't write down their homework and ripped up the newsletter, but texting me on the weekend because you have my number from church is really not cool.

 Sometimes they are down right rude, but most of the time parents just don't realize that I am BUSY.  I don't always have my papers copied for lessons a week in advance to accommodate their last minute, week long trip to Disneyland.  I don't have time in the week to re-teach every lesson their student missed, no matter how much they think I should.

Today I had the opposite.  It was actually very needed.  I've been feeling down about my job and it was just a happy moment to kind of help me through.  One of my students is the son of one of the Vice Principals at the Junior High.  She met Ethan and Ella at my school after the first day of school and has kind of kept an eye out for them.  Being teenagers, it's probably not their favorite thing, but they think she's nice, and say hi to her.

For back story: Ella is still struggling with anxiety, but for the most part she is managing.  We talk through her anxious moments and try and talk about perspective, but it's still there.  Her big triggers for panic attacks are being late and meeting expectations.  She's been doing really well, and is luckily really good at time management.

Today that was tested.  She was let go from a class late, because a student was giving a presentation.  When she got to her locker, it wouldn't open.  She needed a notebook in it, because the notebook was due for grading.  She zoomed to class, left her backpack hoping the teacher would see she wasn't absent, and went back to try her locker again.

As she struggled with her locker, I'm sure very close to a meltdown, the Vice Principal rounded the corner.  Seeing Ella's distress, she offered to open the locker with her key.  They got the locker open.  She could have stoped there.  She could have sent her on her way, but she went the extra mile.  She walked Ella back to her class so she wouldn't be counted as tardy.

I know this is little.  It's not a big deal to be late one time in your entire school career (because it would be the first time), but to Ella it seems insurmountable.  It would not only ruin her day, but she could end up spiraling, dread a similar thing happening again, and give her self anxiety every single time she has to leave a class and open her locker.

I am so thankful for this mom, who took 2 minutes out of her day to help Ella.  It was 2 minutes for her, but a week saved for us.