Category: Other Page 14 of 184

It started with me coming to the end of myself.

I fell apart in September, overwhelmed by the weight of transition and exhaustion, and most significantly, responsibility. I went from being responsible for my four children and some various volunteer projects to being responsible for 18 staff and 148 children (while my own four still very much needed me).

Missionary schools usually have a high turnover rate, but this year was particularly high. Four out of my six classroom teachers were new to their position (though not new to teaching), and the remaining two both went on maternity leave this year–which meant we needed two long-term subs. We also had a new occupational therapist, a new music teacher, a student teacher, and two new teaching assistants in elementary school.

It was the most intense year I’ve ever experienced, hands down. For one of the only times in my life, I will never say, “Wow, that year sped by.” I look back on last August and it feels like an eternity ago.

I kept thinking, Once International Day is over, then things will calm down. But there was always something else. Once kindergarten admissions is over….once the education conference is over….once report cards are done….once Book Week is over….once SEW week is over…..then things will calm down. But now I get it–things don’t calm down until the year itself is over.

I had to come to grips with my limitations. I am a bit of a perfectionist and an over-achiever, and I wanted to do everything, all at once, and I wanted to do it brilliantly. I wanted to be good at my job from the very first day, when the reality was that there was no way I would get good at it until I allowed myself time to learn. Dealing with the difficult child, writing the sensitive email, delicately intervening in a staff conflict–all were things that I was thrust into, but no book could have prepared me for. I made a lot of mistakes, but I had to give myself grace–and time–to learn.

Paradoxically, I also was surprised to find out that I was capable of more than I would have predicted. All of that fear I experienced at the beginning–that I can’t handle it all, that I’m going to fail and let everyone down, that I can’t do this job and be a good mom–none of those fears materialized. There is a blessing in how God has wired us for routine and habit. Doing things over and over makes them easier. Yes, I was exhausted many days, but I still (usually) made dinner, the homework (mostly) got done, bedtime stories were read, I made it to (almost all) sports events. Gil was a huge support, of course, as he took on more than he had in earlier days, and my trustworthy helper, Esta, kept the house clean and the laundry washed. Life didn’t fall apart.

Yes, it was incredibly intense and overwhelming. Taking responsibility for 18 staff and 148 children meant that I took on many of their burdens as well. Children struggling through divorce or dyslexia, teachers struggling with homesickness, morning sickness, or sick family members a continent away. Sometimes it felt crushing.

But we were in it together, my staff and me, and we held each other up and prayed for each other and laughed (and laughed!) together. I was overwhelmed by their grace and encouragement and perseverance, their dedication to HOPAC and to God, and their commitment to excellence.

Overwhelmed by the job, but mostly overwhelmed by joy.

HOPAC Primary School 2017-2018 Staff

I’m afraid these kindergartners were disappointed this year, as they never did reach their goals. We only play “real” football at HOPAC, not American, and teaching ninjas just didn’t make it into the curriculum. 

This was a hard year for me and for many of my staff, but I never expected to laugh so much. There’s something about absurdly difficult situations that make a lot of things seem funny. And working with children gave us plenty of entertainment.

The first month of school, a teacher came into my office, very concerned. She handed me a water bottle full of a dark red liquid. “Smell this,” she said. I took a whiff. Uhhh….that’s alcoholic.

She looked terrified. “This is a student’s water bottle. That child has been falling asleep all morning. What should I do about it?”

I burst out laughing. “You laugh!” I said. “I know this family and I am 100% positive this was an accident. So go ahead and just get a good laugh out of it!” (And, of course, I was right. The mortified parents had a very reasonable explanation for how wine had unintentionally ended up in their child’s bottle instead of water.)

Or there was the time when a class just wouldn’t accept a teacher’s vague ‘birds and the bees’ explanation and insisted on specifics. The next day, one of those students pointed to the belly of a pregnant teacher and announced (with a knowing smile), “I know how that happened.” When that story was told at a staff meeting, we just about fell off of our chairs. 

I taught weekly lessons in each class on emotion regulation and problem-solving. One week, as a review question, I asked the kindergarten class, “Who remembers how we calm down when we are upset?”

One earnest soul responded, “You cook yourself.”

What?

“Yeah, you cook yourself. Like pasta.”

Then I recalled: A couple of weeks prior, I had taught the kids to pretend they were a piece of uncooked spaghetti, and slowly relax their muscles until they were a puddle on the floor–as if they had been cooked. 

Apparently, the take away from that discussion is that we should cook ourselves when we need to calm down. Great.

Our fourth and fifth graders took standardized tests, and I chuckled my way through checking over the “ethnicity” section. About half of the kids had labeled themselves “multi-ethnic.” 

No, darling. You were born in America and are blond-haired and blue-eyed. Yes, you’ve spent your whole life in Tanzania, but you are White.

Or, I know you grew up in China, but you were born in Tanzania and your skin is dark. You are Black, not multi-ethnic.

Oh, the conundrum of being a Third-Culture Kid. I did a lot of erasing and re-categorizing.

There were the toothless grins of the 6-and-7-year-olds who greeted me every morning. Or during kindergarten assessments, the child who drew himself as the Incredible Hulk. Or the one who when asked, “What sound does P make?,” confidently declared, “Penis!” I had a hard time keeping it together through the rest of that assessment.

Of course, it wasn’t just the students who made us laugh. We had Thing 1 and Thing 2 on staff, who fully embraced their responsibility to make mischief wherever they went. Or there was that time when I announced to the whole school that we would be doing “speed” on Friday, and the kids couldn’t understand why the teachers were beside themselves.

We were often overwhelmed this year (more about that later), but we were overwhelmed together. And often, that made it really, really fun.

I kept trying to write about this year as principal at HOPAC, and I kept getting stuck.

There was just too much to say. It’s all been crammed into my head for 10 months and I haven’t had the time to process it, let alone get it out. Not really writer’s block. More like writer’s traffic jam. So I start trying to write, and it’s like those glass ketchup bottles you keep shaking. When it finally comes out, it comes out all at once.

So, forgive me if this reads like spilled ketchup.

This has been the most intense year of my life. For once in my life, a year did not speed by. I think back to August and it feels like an eternity ago.

Never in my life have I had a year with so many thoughts in my brain at once. I used to think that I was good at remembering details, but now I have to tell people, Put it in an email or I will forget. My mind had to switch between too many topics in the course of a day to remember anything anymore.

The kindergarten teacher is on maternity leave. Her substitute teacher is able to work every day except Wednesdays. Between myself, the first grade assistant, and the kindergarten assistant, we manage to get Wednesdays covered. Then the kindergarten assistant leaves to go to some training. So that means I need to move the first grade assistant into kindergarten all day on Wednesdays. The second grade assistant will help the kindergarten teacher while the kindergarten assistant is gone.

And while my brain is doing gymnastics over Wednesdays in kindergarten, a child comes rushing into my office saying, Mrs. Medina! So-and-so just threw my brother’s water bottle and ruined it and I need to call and tell my mom right now!

No darling, you don’t need to call your mom right now. But I make notes: Email mom of boy with ruined water bottle. Email mom of boy who ruined it. Come up with work project as compensation for boy who ruined it.

This is why I could never write a post entitled, “A Day in My Life as Principal.” Because it would look something like this:

9:05  Work on Powerpoint for next week’s assembly.

9:07   Get phone call from teacher asking for help with a behavior issue.

9:08   Arrive at classroom.

9:10   Pull student out of classroom to talk outside.

9:11   Get interrupted by a student on the way to the bathroom, who tells me that she likes my skirt.

9:12   Thank that student, and then remind her that she needs to have her shoes on. Wait while she goes back to get shoes.

9:13   Shoo away a crow who is masterfully opening a child’s lunchbox.

9:14:  Receive a text message from a teacher who can’t find a particular math manipulative. Make a mental note to help her look.

9:15   Continue talk with student. Discuss consequences. Make a mental note to make sure I follow through.

And that’s just 10 minutes of one day. No wonder things kept leaking out of my brain.

There’s been the intensity of thinking, but also the intensity of emotions. I never expected to feel so deeply and in so many ways.

So as I sort through how this year was amazing and heart-wrenching and how it changed me, I am going to organize it by emotion:

Entertained

Overwhelmed

Proud

Fulfilled

Stay tuned. All the ketchup is coming out of the bottle.