The tears found in 7 weeks....

A woman I have worked with for a long time.....shared a post somebody had made about 7 weeks.....and teaching......and she wanted me to read it aloud at lunch to everybody....and it was from the perspective of many teachers right now.....as summer is nearly here......right on our doorstep.......and it was the inner thoughts of all of the teachers in each room.....thinking we only have about 7 weeks left......and education has become really challenging in the last 8 years or so....REALLY challenging.....and I think the state of our children is the pulse of how society is functioning....and in my opinion we have some work to do indeed......so many societal challenges running downhill into the laps of teachers.....but teaching has always been a "work of heart"....always........and perhaps now that is even more the nature of the game.....you have to love kids, and love working with them, to withstand the rest now.....and we all really do.....and so yesterday I read aloud the post.....one teacher thinking 7 more weeks, I can't wait to skate through the next 7 weeks till summer.......another teacher thinking how much they will miss their class, and worried if Johnny will have enough to eat this summer, one teacher feeling confident they had a great year but eagerly awaiting summer....and the one that has had it, and is counting the minutes till summer begins....you get the idea....and maybe all of us have been all of those teachers at one time or another, depending on the year......feeling all of those things, separately, and maybe all at once......and as I read we all laughed, and identified with some of the stream of consciousness of these fictional teachers I was reading about....but then at the end the author said the kid's version of 7 weeks.....the kid on the bus thinking that they only have 7 weeks in the safe space of the school, and with their teachers loving on them....and being fed, and taken care of.....and as I got to it the tears came.....I got choked up.....hard to read that part aloud, and think of that....and the lighthearted banter of it all took a serious tone in one powerful moment......and the magnitude of the role we play in our kid's lives.....and how profound it is, truly.....I could tell you one story after another that would break your heart about most of my students.....some that would take your breath away....and while it has become a Herculean effort on some days to keep our heads above water......it is all of our hearts that leads the way.....knowing that THOSE kids, OUR kids.....NEED us.....the calm in their storms.....and the power of the words I read around the lunch table reminded me of that.....and reminded me to be present in these next 7 weeks....and the time I will be spending with all of them.......remembering the honor it is to walk in their stories for the year that I get to......and holding their stories forever in my heart.....7 weeks....xoxo