Amidst the Wackiness of the Weekend Before The Yearly Dossier is Due, A Talisman Presents Itself

I can't write forever today because I wrote yesterday from since 6 a.m. until midnight and I have to do the same today until I turn in this year's dossier to my department on Monday. Of course, I still have to teach, live life, do groceries, take care of a house, etc., but the weekend the dossier is due, that can be thrown right out the window. Chitunga said, "What? You have to go through that again?" My fellow untenured colleagues who were in their offices today, too, said, "Yup, my family doesn't even ask. They just know."

When I went to settle around midnight, I looked up on a hook and saw my Kentucky hat I got this Fall during my sabbatical and a charm given to my by a student my last year teaching in Louisville in 2007. She had a dog charm engraved, "546 S. First Street. UR Home Forever."

I grabbed the charm in my hand, squeezed it tight, and thought, "Ah, she is right." I am no longer doing the work I do in one school alone, but have taken the Brown School vision to schools and kids in many grades and within many districts.

As I wrote so much today, I realized that I'm a lively fish swimming upstream when so many in the world of education (and this includes higher education) are simply dead fish floating with the stream. With such apathy (and lack of imagination) I wonder how any of us are going to make the changes that will be best for kids and teachers.

Ah, but this is a pointless post because it isn't in a peer-reviewed journal.

I will be a better person in a few weeks. I swear. There are only parts of the year that are this frantic and this happens to be one of them.

For now, I am thankful for my charm.