Dear Students,

I’ve told you since the beginning of the year that this would be it for me. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I will not be returning. But like due dates that I have repeated 3 times a day for a week, it seems this time has snuck up on all of us. You came into my room as I was pulling down the posters and giving away the various spray painted stools I have collected in my nine years of teaching. You looked at me and told me it looked sad in there, that you didn’t like the reminder that I was leaving. I shrugged my shoulders and tried not to cry. I don’t like it either.

I have taught over a thousand students in my 9 years in a classroom. I have thought a lot about you all, especially in these last few months. I found myself telling stories of my past students to my present students in ways I usually do not.

I want to make sure you know that I am not quitting teaching because of you, because I find you annoying, or disrespectful, or too much to handle somehow. Being with you is the best part of this job. I hope you know I like you, even if I don’t always like you as students, if I don’t always like having to be in charge of your antics, I find you delightful as fellow human beings.

If I have taught you anything, I hope I have taught you to be kind. I know I haven’t always modeled it perfectly, but I have always found you respectful and kind; I have heard this is because you feel the same way about me. You show people how to treat you by treating them that way, I hope you have learned how much easier it is to get through this world when everyone is kind to one another.

I hope I have taught you how to listen. You only need to be in my class for about ten minutes before you know exactly what I think about practically anything, but I hope you have seen me hear you out. I hope you have seen me answer your push back and your questions honestly. I hope you have heard and understood your classmates just a little bit better in my classroom. The exposure to diversity you have in your school is a gift, but you have to unwrap that in order to receive it.

I hope you have felt heard, and learned just a little, how to speak for yourself. Some people think that I am crazy, that I give you too much control of my class when I adjust my plans to the things you tell me you want and need. I hope you have learned to advocate for yourselves, to speak up when you need something, to suggest a better way when you see one. There will be people far more intimidating than me that you will have to suggest things to, I hope you have learned those skills in my class, for when you really need them later in life. .

I hope you have learned the value of a good story. You’ve heard a lot of stories in my class, ones I tell about my life, ones you read from famous authors. I hope you connected with at least a few stories, I hope you remember them, remember what you learned from them about humanity, power, laughter, love.

And I hope you learned the value of a good apology. I don’t do everything perfectly. If you are my student you know this better than maybe anyone. I make mistakes, I lose my temper, I screw up the grade book. Remember how much more you respect me because I am willing to own up to my mistakes. Remember that if you make a mistake in public your amends must also be public. This rule has kept me out of a lot of trouble. I have too much pride to apologize to a 15 year old in front of the rest of you. But if I speak out of turn in front of a group, it isn’t fair for me to apologize privately.

I have grown up, these last years, as you have grown up right before my eyes. Scrawny freshmen from a few years ago bump me in the hallway and apologize in voices so deep I laugh with surprise. Kids from my first year find me on Facebook, graduating from college, married, living full adult lives. No one has stayed the same. We have all grown and changed and hopefully, know a little bit more than we did before. It is cliche to say, but it is true, you have taught me far more than I could ever teach you.

I hope, with my leaving, I can teach you one more thing. I hope that I can serve as a reminder that you are worth so much more than any test could tell you. I hope you will remember that if you tried your best, and listened, and learned, and tried to fit but couldn’t that it isn’t you that is broken. I hope you have learned to look critically at systems that are set up so that not everyone can win, and I hope you can demand better ways, even if it is scary, even if it costs you something. I hope you know your whole self is worthy of bringing to the table. I hope you have learned in my classroom, there are places and people that want all of you, I hope I have taught you to find those places in the world. I am learning all of this myself. I am trying, in my imperfect way, to teach you how to live as your whole self in this world. I have seen those whole selves, this world needs all of you.

Much Love,

Ms. Norman

PS We can break my strict no touching rule for a goodbye hug. But just this once.

We have a week and a half left of school and this post from two years ago sums up exactly what is happening in my brain.

You would think when a girl writes this in September, she would brace herself for the end of the year. You would think wrong. Girlfriend did not have time to brace herself. She was too busy teaching her heart out, her buns off, like her hair was on fire. And now? Now girlfriend isn’t just tired. She is t-i-r-e-d. She is exhausted. She is typing in third person and she doesn’t even care, because she has 11 days left until she does not have to speak to or be in charge of a teenager for two glorious months.

You thought seniriotis was bad? I promise you the seniors have nothing, nothing on the way the teachers are feeling, and they aren’t allowed to organize pranks or walk out of class, or take a long lunch because they have never ever in their whole career done it before, and darn it they deserve it! No, we can’t do that. Because we have to be in charge. It is completely unfair. I mean, we have been the adults in the room every single day for 169 days. When is it our turn to act like the children?

Oh yeah. Never.

The only way I can think to explain the way that I am feeling, is that the giant toddler that lives inside of every one of us, is clawing to get out. I am about three seconds from letting said toddler be in charge. And everyone knows that is a terrible idea. You can’t put the raging toddler in charge of anything. You especially cannot put a raging toddler in charge of mostly grown, but seriously lacking in the frontal-lobe-development-departmet hormone surging teens. You may want to stand at the front of your room and just scream NO! nononononono! NO! at them, but as I tell my toddler, that is not a choice. So, how exactly does one loving teacher who is seriously at the end of her rope, manage to calm the toddler inside down long enough to keep her job for the clean slate that is next September, (ugh), August? By parenting herself, to the max. When the toddler is in a mood, everyone knows there is really only so much a person can do. And it IS that bad people, I am just trying to parent myself until I can get to beditme, I mean, summer.

Choose Your Battles – As I sing to my kids on a regular basis, You can’t always get what you want. I know you want to function like the fully grown up person that you almost always are, but right now, we are in survival mode. So, (as our van currently plays on repeat) let it go. Feeding your kids cereal and yogurt on the back porch and letting your dog lick them clean will not kill them. Your kids will love it. Wearing those pants that are pajamas but can totally pass as slacks is totally allowed. Drive-thru to get coffee four days this week, even if you and your car-pool agreed that was a Wednesday only activity. You can only tell the toddler no, so many times. Only say no to the desires when said desires will get you fired.

Check Your Schedule – Everyone knows a well rested toddler is a happy one. Take all unnecessary appointments out of your schedule. Re-schedule for June or July. For the love of all things holy, treat bedtime as sacred ground and keep it. Lie to yourself and tuck yourself in a half hour early for your own good. You really need it and it is in everyone’s best interest.

Make The Toddler Giggle – Sometimes, when you get ragey, the only thing left to do is distract yourself. Do whatever it takes to give yourself a laugh. Watch that video you love (again! AGAIN!). Do a dance, listen to your favorite song, run a lap naked and giggling around your house after bath time. Getting the toddler to giggle makes said toddler forget all her previous woes. When something stops working, try something else.

When all else fails, Bribe the toddler – Sometimes you have to, you are at a wedding, you are in public, you need them to take their medicine. EVery parent knows that sometimes you  just need to bribe your kid. Take this parenting advice and apply it like no tomorrow. Wine, ice cream, cold press coffee, access to Twitter, just bribe yourself. It is fine. It isn’t forever. Just until grades are due and you don’t have to worry about saying something that might get you fired. (For every hour you manage to not say anything questionable, go ahead and give yourself five m&ms.)

Pull it together fellow teachers. We are almost done. We can do this. We can be the adults for eleven more days. Then we can bribe ourselves with as much wine as summer can handle. Cheers.

A few days ago, a story came across my news feed that I was sure was not true. Apparently, a school district in North Carolina has changed their handbook so that high schoolers are allowed to carry pepper spray with them to school. This has something to do with pre-preemptive fear about who is in the bathroom, and there are a myriad of good articles discussing that fear. I would like to focus on the craziness that is allowing teenagers pepper spray in school.

If we can’t all agree that letting high school students carry weapons to school is a terrible idea, then there really is no hope for this country.

I do not care what the problem is, giving teenagers pepper spray is NEVER the solution. Ever. Not even one time.

I have been working in a high school setting for ten year, and I have a lot of hands on experience with the kinds of stupid that high school students exhibit on a regular basis. This stupid is not because they are stupid, or bad, or awful. The kind of stupid that is high school student stupid has everything to do with the fact that there is a critical mass of bodies that look fully grown being directed by brains that are not fully developed. This isn’t anyone’s fault, but it has been my professional problem for the last ten years.

Let me say, in my full teacher voice, with the kind of authority needed to keep two girls who have already taken off their earrings from going full MMA on each other in my classroom:

WE DO NOT GIVE TEENAGERS WEAPONS AT SCHOOL!

Teenagers do not think before they act. They just do not. When I took to Twitter and Facebook to ask my teacher friends what was the dumbest thing a student had ever done in their classroom, not because the child was bad simply because the child was a teenager, I got some doozies. These examples come from all kinds of kids with all kinds of backgrounds at all kinds of schools. The only thing these kids have in common, is their brain development.

Here is a selection of the responses I received from my veteran teacher friends:

A student stuck a paperclip in the electrical outlet just to see what would happen.

A student used the bunsen burner to “sterilize” a paper clip and pierce their own ear.”

There was the girl who made appointments in the girls bathroom and pierced multiple peer navels before she was finally caught. Think about that for a second. MULTIPLE teenagers decided that it was a good idea to let a peer pierce their belly button in a public restroom. Multiple.

There were more incidences of kids sharpening pencils super pointy and then stabbing themselves or someone else with than I want to believe.

The same goes for students who wanted to know if a staple would go through jeans and into a human’s thigh. Spoiler alert: It can if you press hard enough.

There were two separate incidents, reported by teachers who don’t even know each other, of a kid hot gluing another kid in the neck “just to see what would happen.”

Speaking of seeing what would happen, there were also multiple reports of a student somehow getting a hold of pepper spray (usually from a teacher’s key chain) and voluntarily spraying themselves with it, just to see if it really was as bad as the people on YouTube claim.

I, personally, once taught a child who sprayed his friend and when the friend started crying BECAUSE HE HAD BEEN PEPPER SPRAYED. The sprayer then sprayed himself to prove his friend was just being a baby. They both got sent to the nurse to get their eyes washed out, and then they had to go home.

One of my colleagues at a neighboring school system was knocked out cold by a stray textbook that had been thrown through the air. The kid who threw it wasn’t being malicious. It is just that he was wondering how far he could throw the textbook and his aim was off. A textbook. A kid looked at a text book and didn’t think, I wonder what kind of valuable information I can glean by opening this up and reading it. No, this kid looked at the textbook and thought, I wonder how far I can chuck this thing. So, he did that.

And, hands down, the most disgusting incidence of WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING IN YOUR BRAIN! A student, while dissecting a rat, dared another student to eat a rat fetus that had been preserved in formaldehyde. They of course recorded this epic incident and posted it on the internet for posterity’s sake. When presented with the recording and the sheer amount of dangerous chemicals ingested, the student shrugged and said it was definitely worth the five dollars he was paid. He ate a rat fetus and defends that decision to this day.

These are the same, looking grown, but for sure not grown,  people that a school district has agreed should be allowed to carry pepper spray to school. I have no idea how much the school nurses in that district make, but it is not even close to enough to deal with this foolishness.

Aren’t school districts supposed to be aware of what children are like? Who passed these changes? Surely not a parent with children in their own house! Parents of teenagers know better. Teachers of teenagers know better. Who does not know better than to let teenagers carry around pepper spray, and suggest to them they might need to use it in school and WHY ARE THEY IN CHARGE OF THE RULES?

Y’all. I have questions. But perhaps my most timely question is: Who is going to start the YouTube channel for all the pepper spray mishaps bound to be caught on camera? As long as I am not in charge of it, that junk is bound to be hilarious.

My computer died two Wednesdays ago. Just when it is becoming reality that I actually did quit my job to try to make some money at this writing gig, the one tool I needed. It wasn’t even that old. It for sure had the best copy of two books that I am working on. I for sure had been meaning to upload them to the cloud, but the machine wasn’t even acting funny. Until it wouldn’t start.

I met the kindest man who has ever worked on a Geek Squad and handed him my computer. No problem, he said. Let me try two other things, he said. I have one more person I want to ask he said. I am very very sorry he said. Is there anything I can get you? he said, as I sobbed uncontrollably into my dead computer.

My book is on there. In three weeks I quit job to be a writer (or seminary student) in two weeks. I rose up to my destiny and instead of rising up to meet me, the universe sucker punched me. I was literally doubled over and gasping for breath.

It was awful. That moment was totally awful. There was nothing left to do.

I don’t know why it takes having no other options to ask for help. But I know I am not the only one who waits that long. I started a GoFundMe page and went to bed crying. I woke up to 24% of my goal and by Friday evening I had met my goal. With Facebook often burying crowd sourcing links, many people I know hadn’t even seen it. I am still, even as I am typing this from my new computer, shocked at the support that was given.

If you are following along, you know that my family is living in a state of radical uncertainty. It is wearing on me. It is hard to keep faith, even the size of a mustard seed. I cry a lot. I worry I lot. I am mad at myself for worrying and that doesn’t really help anything. I still don’t have any answers.

I’ve been putting off writing this follow up post because I wanted this to change everything. I wanted your generosity and the speed at which you poured it out to be the first in a series of allthethings coming together. Instead, it has been the piece that I am clinging to. I am supposed to write. I am called to this life I am pursuing. My needs will be met, probably in ways I am not expecting. I should continue to swim into the deep end, instead of scurrying back to shore. With every stroke I am gasping for breath. I am not sure I am going to make it. But for now I swim on. I am choosing to trust that I will see the next shoreline any minute against the horizon. I am  choosing to believe that the rescue boats will come when I cannot take one more breath on my own.

If you donated already, and did not yet receive your thank you, expect one tomorrow. I can’t wait to skype with some of you! If you still want to donate, I would love to be able to update my website. Every kind word has been stored up just like every dollar. Thank you all, my rescue boats. 

You can find my GoFundMe here.

I am trying hard to keep it together these last few weeks of school. Only, not so well. Sometimes I put pressure on myself about how I should feel or what I should write about. Sometimes I want to protect my readers from all the messiness that is happening. We don’t know where we will live, or what we will do, or who will make the money, or really anything. The stress is getting to me.

I wrote on The Mudroom about dying, about waiting for and believing that the resurrection is coming. I am clinging to this, hoping that my mustard seed of faith is enough.

Everywhere I run, I am headed toward dying things. Everything that I think I might love to do, people are warning me those things are dying. On my worst days, I am terrified. The slow dying of the classroom teacher has drained me. I feel myself walking around exhausted, half as much blood pumping through me as a person should really have. I feel the gasping for breath, the slowing of thought as I realize there isn’t enough oxygen to sustain me. 

Read the whole thing here. 

I wrote about our state of radical uncertainty for She Loves this month. I feel like this is all I write about lately, but this is where I am. I feel like the end of this article wraps things up really neatly. If you are where I am please know that is me claiming a promise I know to be true, even when I don’t feel like it. In reality I am not sleeping very well, and am probably using an unhealthy amount of distraction techniques. I am yelling more than I usually do. We are all just doing the best we can. I stand by the ending, that it will be good, I know this to be true even if it doesn’t feel like it.

If you are moving forward, you are going to have to leave people behind.

I am sorry to be so blunt, but I thought I would lead with the thing no one wants to tell you. Moving forward means sometimes people get left behind. It totally sucks, but it is totally necessary.

Forward means movement, and movement means not everything comes with you. It means not everyone comes with you. I know. I hate it too.

Moving forward in your career, or your beliefs, or even in your location, means that not everyone will follow you. Not everyone is supposed to follow you. Sometimes you need to move forward and they need to stay. Sometimes you move forward in different directions. It is messy and awful and it hurts—this moving forward thing. It is just plain hard sometimes. A lot of times.

Change is not for the faint of heart.

You can read the rest here. 

Dear Juliet,

You are six. How is that possible? You are officially a kid, not a little kid, not a baby. Just a kid, running wild into the world. Every year writing you this letter gets more complicated, because your world gets more complicated. There is so much more that you are working out, that we are working out, that needs working out without the prying eyes of the internet.

As I read through the past letters I have for you I am delighted at how much you have grown, and how little you have changed. You are still so friendly, still so extroverted and encouraging. You still see every day you wake up as potentially the best day of your life. You tell me I am doing a great job, and cry when I will not let you go to sleep over at the house of a person we met twenty minutes before. Why not mom? She is my friend.

I struggle with the balance between protecting your bright ideas of the world, and protecting you from the dangers this world holds. I don’t want you to go through the world afraid, but I don’t want your youthful abandon to get taken advantage of. It is confusing for both of us sometimes.

You have grown longer this year. Your pants that fit in the waist show far too much of your ankle. The dresses that fit in your shoulders expose a lot of your leg. I let you run through the public splash pad in your underwear your last day of being five. You looked eight. How can I explain to the world just how young you are, how innocent, how full of joy? Your dad and I talk about wanting to raise you wild and free, and the older you get the more you are expected to comply. This growing up thing is not for the faint of heart.

But your heart is strong. You are big hearted and generous. You are bold and pure. You are good good good my love. You are a delight. Sometimes I catch you looking around to see if anyone is looking at the cute thing you did or noticing the smart thing you said. It is a blessing and curse to be so aware of the emotions around you. People notice. They do. But I hope that I can teach you the lesson I am learning. What is good and right and delightful is between you and your God. If you please yourself, and you please your God, it does not matter what the rest of us think.

You are so amazing.

Love,

Mom