and i'm back...

The sun was shining and the sky a vibrant bright blue when I opened the door of our elementary school. I propped it open and nineteen three year old children tottered out after me – most of them with their hands behind their back and a “bubble” in their mouth, our procedure for walking in line. I watched them skurry past me, bound for the swings, slides, and other fun obstacles on our playground, and I realized: these are my babies. After thirteen weeks with these kids, leaving them before the end of the year would be as painful as chopping off my left arm. Their imaginations, sense of adventure, and genuine love for everyone around them. Their smiles, laughter, and “monster” faces. The sound of their voices as we review letters and numbers. It would be too much to do anything but finish the year with these rowdy, rambunctious little people.

“Miss Robinson, I’m going to catch you!” Milian shouted on the playground, his legs in a position that made him look like a tiny track star on the starting block. It was at that moment that I realized… You have already caught me. Milian, you and the thirty six others, have caught me. Sometimes it feels wonderful, like when seven of them are hugging me at once and telling me they love my shoes, my nose, my hair…anything. Sometimes it feels as if I have been caught, in a net, and I’m thrashing to get out – days when things are tense between myself and my co-teacher, when I’m putting on gloves and wiping up urine in the bathroom, when I’m trying to reason with a toddler who really just wants to hit other kids and scream in my face but I can’t send him home so I’ve just got to deal with it.

Either way, I joined TFA at the end of the day to love on kids, regardless of what they achieve academically. So, here we are, doing just that. It doesn’t ultimately matter if my kids are behind academically at the end of the year – they can and probably will catch up in PreK4, which is a full day program at our school. But, what matters, is if they learned routines. If together we sparked a lifelong love of school and learning. What matters at the end of the day is if they know they matter – if not to their families, than to me. To each other. To the world.

“Maestra!!!! I’m going to catch you.”

Well, my lovebug, it turns out you already have.