Out of Your Comfort Zone!

I returned to school today after a really productive weekend. I had completed more planning and organisation for the new group and emailed the relevant documents to all the people concerned, planned my lessons for the week and started to write Year 9 reports as I have 120 to write before I start working with the new group. I had also managed a day out although it did involve looking for a variety of resources to use with the new group. I have to say at this point that this was yet another example of things just turning up when you need them plus one or two things that I had not thought about but as soon as I saw them I knew they would be perfect.

Yet on my way into school, I picked up on a mixture of very strange energies. I knew that they were not 'mine' and so I was a little apprehensive as I walked into school. Without going into too many details, all I can say is I was greeted with a whole load of 'problems' from other people. Whilst I understand that they were all very real to others, I have to say that they were all told in a very dramatic way and indicated that people were getting very stressed. I recognised that I have reacted like this in the past too.

At this point that wonderful Spiritual phrase which I have used many times came to mind i.e. 'We are never set a challenge with which we cannot cope!' I had to take a deep breath, stay calm and try and work through them in a logical way. All this of course before going off to teach my own lessons.

When I thought about the day on my way home, I realised that there were similarities with all the situations and it was that people were being taken out of their Comfort Zone and as a result they were beginning to panic. I guess to some extent it was understandable that people should only think of themselves and not look at the whole picture and yet we know that the only way to move forward is to put ourselves to one side in cases like this. It was a timely reminder to me of the whole reason for being here at this time on the planet and hard though it has been today, I am determined to keep the focus.

Having had a good night's sleep, I felt sure that Wednesday was going to be a much calmer day. Things seemed to be going a little against my plan in that I had a very slow journey into school, as is often the case on a Wednesday as it is market day in the rural town where I teach. I know it is no use getting stressed as I chug along behind a tractor or cattle wagon or both. Today's delay was slightly different in that it was caused by a German milk lorry plus a trailer carrying another milk lorry. The driver flagged me down at one point to check on directions, which was quite an interesting experience, as I speak no German!!

When I eventually arrived, a little later than I had hoped, it was straight into the morning briefing. The first issue here was a member of staff very keen on asserting his 'authority' by assuming that he had the right to be in my room and I would have to move. Something of a compromise was eventually reached here but it only highlighted to me yet again how difficult it can be to get the balance right between being Spiritual and not letting the ego get the better of us, and at the same time not letting people 'abuse' you in their particular way.
As the day progressed, things certainly seemed to improve and to my amazement I had an apology from one member of staff who had greeted me with their 'problems' yesterday. It was then that I heard the news that put everything in perspective. Several of the pupils were very distraught because whilst they had been waiting for the school bus, they had witnessed a man hang himself. What else can I say about the day at this point?

I know there is so much I could say about the events yesterday, but I have to move on and so I will start Thursday's entry by saying, 'Don't you just love it when a plan comes together!!!'In case I had not mentioned it before, as well as myself having the new group, which will have 24 pupils in it, there will also be a smaller group of 10 pupils who have even more literacy problems, these will be taught by another member of staff in a similar way to mine. I had sorted out where my group was going to be taught and was already organising the room for this, but there was still a problem with her choice of room.

We are reaching the point of being full as a school and so the Head's reaction to this was to suggest knocking a wall down and taking away the preparation room for the Teaching Assistants. This then presented them with a problem which I can see from all levels i.e. the physical and the Spiritual. The physical was obvious but from a spiritual having said last week how much they agreed with what we are doing it was a little like 'prove it' because in order for it to happen you have to have something taken away or so it seemed. It was interesting that one of them did come and say to me that although she did not want to lose the space, she would do it for the good of the kids! This problem was really beginning to bug me as I knew there was another solution and as I said to the TA staff, do not worry I will find it! I felt a bit like pretending to be Superman at this point.

Well I am glad to say I found the solution at 6am the following morning. It was like things often are in that it is so simple but you just cannot see it at the time. As we are both teaching at different times on the timetable apart from a couple of periods during the week, then she can use the same room as me. We will also save in terms of stock i.e. paint; brushes etc as we can both use the same ones. I have to say I was somewhat excited when I told the Head this and I think he felt a little silly that he had not thought of this in all his wisdom and power and I had. As you can imagine there were whoops of joy from the Teaching Assistants and I felt a bit like a Fairy Godmother for the rest of the day. The other teacher of the small group is very relieved and I think she is rather pleased too as there are now lots of things that she will not have to think of in terms of organisation etc as I will have done it for her. Interesting, I am beginning to recognise another pattern here of having to lead people through new experiences even though in theory [bits of paper I mean] they are much more qualified to do it than I am!

It is now Friday and another time to catch up briefly with wonderful friends and reflect on the week. I suppose in summary the key issues have been keeping the focus and how we deal with power issues. So much to think about with this whole process and so interesting. I now have a weekend of keeping my focus as I continue with report writing. I wonder what next week will bring.