Year #5

I am now a few weeks into my school year and 4 days into actually teaching my students. It has been filled with the normal highs and lows, questioning almost everything (student placement, my approach, etc. etc.), and happiness to be around the students again. All in all, I felt that everything was kind of going along in that normal start of the school year manner.

Then, around 9:25, something stopped me in my tracks. I was in another teacher's classroom, teaching a small group of children, when it became obvious that one of the student's was having a problem. He's a snorter of snot. After directing him to get a tissue, it became obvious that getting at tissue and knowing what to do with a tissue were divergent pieces of knowledge. As I was figuring this out, the snorting was quickly moving from amazingly loud to fear inducing. He then announced that water was coming out of his nose. This whole experience caused me to lose my teacher-persona momentarily.

You see, I have have previously had a run-in with snot while teaching. There was a sneeze, a multi-inch long stalactite of booger, and a look pleading for help. Today's booger run-in caused me to flashback to that horrible image that has been permanently etched in my mind. I eventually composed myself and continued teaching. At the end of the day, I needed to go back and talk to the teacher and apologize for my lack of professionalism. Once I told her about the other snotty run-in, she understood.