The Secret Behind School Projects

Monday morning and fighting with a migraine and mastitis, I don’t want to listen to the halting sounds of beginning readers or chase boys back to the school table.  As the school bus went by the house, I considered bribing the driver to take them away.  On mornings like this the option of school is very enticing.  My bed is calling me back to it as the siren song of medication (which would knock me out until tomorrow morning) beckons me.  This is the kind of morning which tests my resolve. 

How easy it would be this morning to walk away from 11 years of schooling and declare that I have done it long enough.  It would be so easy to be done.

If I’m honest though, it would be easy to walk away from everything right now.  The house is more work than I can do at this moment, changing the baby’s diaper seems like a Herculean task….. even breathing is making my head pound and my chest hurt.

I think this calls for a project.  A big school project which requires lots of collaboration and research from my students.  The kind where they all work together, independent from any help from me.  I used to wonder why teachers had children build dioramas or scale models of famous battles.  I used to think they were so much more creative.  Now I see it for what it is, it’s one big long week of “be quiet and get the heck away from me.”

I’ve sent the boys down to the creek to collect varieties of leaves for leaf rubbings, and #4 with a camera to take pictures of the trees which dropped them.  I think a book on trees and their leaves is completely appropriate for Fall.  It should also buy my a few hours of nap.