Irritation

I am irritable. I can admit it. No, I'm not pregnant. Just irritated. It's clearly nearing the end of the school year because my patience is long gone.

Today I walked to the office and picked up a nice thick stack of office referrals and kids I'm not afraid to use them. In fact, I used some today. You get one warning, and you're gone. Can you tell that I'm irritated yet? I'm done with the moaning, groaning, griping, and whining.


I mean even little things bug me now. Before I could just let it go, but not now.

"Are we playing games today?"
"Are we doing anything fun today?"

Umm hello everyday is fun! Your teacher is the definition of fun.

Games? You mean like Monopoly? Yah that's right let's just sit around and play "Guess Who?" and "Mall Madness" until the cows come home (or in this case the bell rings). I don't know but in fifth grade they must have played games like the whole last month of school because my kids looked shocked (like mouths open) when I said, "We work and learn at school. And we're going to do that until the last week of school."

Games? Really?

Now don't think I'm a worksheet pusher. Man I hate worksheets and book work. We rarely do that. In fact just to show you the level on fun-o-meter we had a monster draw-off. It was very well related to the curriculum because we read a poem about monsters. After the kids were done making annotations and we discussed the theme, they drew their best monster. We had a competition and the kids got to vote on the best monster. Consider this a game if you will.

Well the fun can't be accomplished without irritating Mrs. Lueders. The "monster" in the poem represented "hate" in our hearts. The monster could be seen as being prejudiced, racists, or judgmental. This was a perfect guidance lesson in disguise so since I'm going to be a counselor in 11.5 more days, I jumped all over this. I asked if we could relate to this. I said, "Please don't raise your hands. I don't want a confession, but has anyone in here ever been judged because you look or act different." Then I proceeded to discuss this, and I then added "Without raising your hands, has anyone in here passed judgment against someone."

Here comes the irritation part....

Some students were shaking their heads "NO!" So I added, "Just be honest with yourselves. Has anyone ever looked at someone and thought "Wow, they don't look like me or I'm not picking them for my team in gym because they're not athletic enough."

Still one kid was shaking his/her head no. I couldn't believe it. I was growing with irritation, so then I did a self-confession and continued to say, "We all can be guilty of this. It's not one of my proudest moments but it does happen, and that's why this poem is encouraging us to stay open-minded and be willing to learn about differences."


She/he is still shaking their head no.

Well the only thing I could decide was that their new name must be Jesus.

And didn't I say, "We don't need a confession?"

Irritated....I'm all over that this week!