It's been a week...

So, it feels like an eternity since last I blogged, and things have been happening.

First of all, we had a lovely anniversary dinner out.  We went to Chili's and they have a great deal -- dinner, appetizer, 2 margaritas AND dessert for 35$...yum.  Service was awesome...company was the best!

I'm exhausted because we've been so busy between home life and work...I've got exactly four weeks to "D Day"...FCAT Writes...I've been training these students the entire year -- for the 45 minutes they will have on February 28th...a year of working for 45 minutes of testing.

The stress is starting to get to me...my lovely teammate will be helping me blitz them -- as we will both be hitting writing pretty hard for 3 weeks.  I am overwhelmed...and freaking out a little because I am handing off a lot of my power, and that scares me (as I am a control freak to an extent).

I just feel like crying a lot -- and I keep telling myself about how far they have come, and believe me they have come far.  I've got students that wrote sentences that were NOT comprehensible to now they are writing with feeling and emotion and pictures...you should see the pictures some of them can write.  Why am I scared?

I know where they've come from.  I know how far they've progressed.  I know how strong they can be.  I know how passionate they are about SOME subjects.  I know they are capable.  I know they are talented...I know all these things...

But the person that grades them...that's not me.  They don't know that many of them STILL don't use periods like they should.   They CAME to me that way and no matter how hard I've hit it, they still haven't got that down. They don't know that they struggle with the words they use in conversation being a completely different language than the words they read in the books.  They don't know that teachers before me have push them forward, or principals before have, because they didn't want to DEAL with them.  I have students that can't read...can't write...thinking is out of the question.  They don't know that some of my students' parents will move them from one school to the next on a monthly basis, move them from our school to another and then back again several times in ONE school year.  Some of them will only make their child go to school when they are threatened by the truancy officer...the person scoring my tests...they don't know my kids.  Then the students that WANT to learn, but can't because 40% of their class have never been made to behave, or have had things handed to them for so long, and they expect it.  Too many people want to help them...be their friends...make things easier...it doesn't make it easier!!!

I have to take comfort only in the fact that I have done what I needed to do to teach them...please God give them what they need for the 45 minutes because they will be judged...by people that don't know them.

I'm scared out of my mind...please God give me strength to get through this month.