•Contemplating life on adrenaline

Over the next three days, life's schedule will be totally topsy turvey. I will be helping students move through their final semester exams. I hope they are prepared. I hope I am. Working through an exam for a learning disability student is a feat in itself. A student who may not be able to focus, will have one focus, get through the test and there will be five, maybe six of them. As a teacher, I will have to be prepared to assist students who can not focus, who need a lot of light and those who need low light, students who can not read the test items, and those who have visual perception issues and can not fill in the bubble sheets, another who's test anxiety will make her physically ill. We will have U.S. History, World History, Biology, Chemistry, English, Anatomy, Functions, Statistics and Trigonometry, Advanced Algebra exams all coming into the room at the same time. We will be lucky if the students' teachers have delivered the exams to the resource room and lucky if we will be able to honor the teacher's expectations around test security. I do find it humorous when I find myself wishing my students were centered, prepared and together enough to even contemplate "cheating". It will take everything they have to spend the two hours, and many will take more than the two hours to get through each test. I don't think anyone will ever convince me that this is the method to measure one's knowledge.

This system as a whole has drained me dry. It becomes more difficult to want to function at the super teacher level. I was a super teacher. I once did it all. I started at 4:30 am and ended at 10 pm. I started each day with going to the gym for 2 hours. I would arrive at work early. I assisted students with learning issues and how to overcome or side-step the problems. I created amazing lessons. I did all my federal paperwork and Individual Education Plan meetings with intention and meaning. I advise a group of students who want to change the world and once facilitated their amazing performance art. I connected with communities of color and looked for workshops and learning opportunities for my own growth, but it was at a price.

Teaching students different study strategies, organizational skills and post-secondary planning is my primary role and what is deemed even more important by the district, is the paperwork and parent meetings that say we will address the student needs on an individual basis. It has become impossible to prepare, plan and write these reports in a school day, so I have always taken that work home with me, hence the still working at 10 pm. It never felt like work. It does now. There is less time for creativity, the fun lessons and the discussions about life all have to wait because someone has to pass a test.

I can't do it anymore. At 6pm, I don't want to even think about school anymore. At nine o'clock, I am usually asleep. I use to play guitar and write and create art. I took yoga classes and kickboxing. I had friends. Over the years those joys and passions have had to wait until break, until summer, until I retire.

Recently, the price seems too high. When I come home these days, I want to be home. I no longer want to work until I drop. I don't want to work at all when I walk through the door. I want to watch Oprah, walk the dog for as long as I feel like it rather than scheduling 30 minutes so I can finish a report. I want to enjoy cooking a meal. I want to do an hour of yoga. I want to read a book!

I don't think I want to continue living life on adrenaline. I want to give more attention to things that matter. My students matter, but no one will convince me that that 12 page report that will be filed, possibly round filed, makes a difference. What makes a difference is problem solving with a student through a difficult night with a parent who had been drinking, teaching a test-taking strategy, demonstrating brain yoga, creating short hallway theater pieces around social justice issues. What matters now even more are my personal passions and a balance that includes them both-work and my life. All the hours, all the accomplishments, being patted on the back for a job well done (which we rarely are) won't make a difference if the adrenaline has me crash and burn.

It took me an entire summer to recover from last year's burnout. Halfway through this year, I recognize it is time to rekindle passions that are dimming. I do not have to let my fire go out. I know I do want to return in the fall. But I also know, I will also seek out a new direction. I will break away and focus on my a new social and spiritual path next year this time, body work training in the Nicoya Penninsula, Costa Rica.

For now, in the present, this very weekend, I will center myself in front of the fire, revel in the quiet of my house in Duluth, watch the snow softly fall, and read. I don't have to be super teacher for the next three days. What I really want is to burrow under the covers and stay in my jammies all day. This is where I find pleasure. This weekend I will seek out simple pleasures. I can walk Sitka as long as I like on the edge of the St. Louis River. I can stop for a hot chocolate in any number of coffee shops along the way home. I can make a cup of tea while watching ships pass in the night. I look around me to see a life full of beauty and grace. From this place of serenity, I quietly ready myself for the next semester... no adrenaline needed.