December 31st, 2021: "Sacrifice" Will Not Be My Word of the Year

It's five or so hours away from 2022, and true to form, 2021 is going out sucker-punching left and right.  Grateful to have been able to celebrate my birthday and Christmas with our two eldest who traveled home for winter break, teenager and husband, it has still been difficult watching Omicron run roughshod over the world, Colorado burn, and today, many, many tributes to Betty White, who wasn't supposed to die for at least another ninety-nine years.  Friends who have been sick are recovering from illness for the most part, but others have lost loved ones this year, or are about to in the next. My mood is difficult to describe.  

There. I've admitted it. 

I'm fifty-two, and happy to be here.  Some aches and pains have started to become more consistent (boo), and I'm hoping that my bifocal contact lens prescription can be adjusted to a satisfactory state so that I can avoid readers or bifocal glasses plopped on the very edge of my mask producing fog and mascara meltdowns each day (fingers crossed). I'm wondering if any company makes sturdy, arch-supporting, semi-fashionable orthotic winter boots as librarianship requires lots and lots of walking which my feet are none too pleased about. Water is now a preferred beverage, which is just plain weird.

In retrospect, I began my transition away from the kindergarten classroom during our first COVID shutdown in March 2020 and not last summer when I was officially hired as my school's librarian. I didn't have to measure the distance between tables and chairs until August 2021 when students were finally able to return to the library as I'd spent the year prior teaching kindergarten virtually. Now during my last two days of winter break, I'm wondering how many students will be absent next week and how many will be sent home throughout January. I'm hoping that my district changes Monday's scheduled en masse staff PD to Zoom, because, well, Omicron. I can easily watch and listen and participate while I get out the yardsticks and remeasure the cohort tables in the library before students return on Tuesday.  Yes, yes I can.

I spent some time over break in the library refinishing six cohort tabletops a-g-a-i-n because ~wow~, the kiddos are pickers this year.  Lots and lots of hands-on (disinfected multiple times daily) manipulatives and fidgets and games haven't prevented their urge to self-soothe by tipping chairs, tapping feet, or picking off stickers and poly-coated finishes.  They've cried and thrown tantrums for "having to sit at the red table 'cause I HATE the color red" and they've barely endured being stuck with those classmates for weeks and weeks and weeks on end while trying hard to "be good" and not get into trouble, allowing their little fingernails to seek out any imperfection to then pick apart until there are flakes of poly all around their chairs on the floor.  Gone are the colors and the stickers.  Now we have black paint to match our rugs and shapes to help support the math curriculum.  We'll see if wear and tear are set to light speed again. Thank goodness the tables are thirty-ish years old and can take a sanding. If only I had a library budget, and if only I could use that budget to either purchase new tables or glass (or acrylic) toppers.

I'm still prone to ruining my eyeliner when I re-read the notes and cards and admire the gifts given and sentiments shared with me by students and their families during the last week of school in December.  I've often heard that specialists tend to be forgotten educators, so to be remembered by so many really makes me feel like my efforts and relationship-building have been appreciated.  I'm grateful to be loving my new job and am reaffirmed that my decision to leave the general education classroom was the right one.  I'm pleased that I miss the students, I miss pulling resources for teachers, and I miss my new routines.  I'm hoping that I'll only continue to miss them for the remainder of this school year due to snow days (yay) and Spring Break (no, I'm not yet counting down). 

I actually have New Year's resolutions regarding my job, too:

1) Reduce the amount of personal time I donate.  I don't know if my internal clock will allow me to arrive at school any later than 7:00 a.m. each morning (7:40 is my contracted arrival time), and I really do hate traffic, so I'm going to do what I can to avoid sneaking back in on weekends and future breaks. My initial investments of time and energy last summer and over winter break were necessary and every person in our school reaps the benefit from them, but sacrifice will not be my word of the year. 

2) Read more, of course.  I still need to broaden my chapter book and fiction repertoire, but picture books still exert a ton of pull over me, oh yes they do.

3) Inventory and shelf read before summer.  There hasn't been time to do either, and the library needs both to be done... desperately.

4) Continue to advocate for equity and all learners by advocating for a full-time library program.  A school doesn't need a part-time tutor more than a full-time librarian. Non-readers, emerging readers, reluctant readers, and reading piranhas NEED a strong collaboration between classroom teachers, reading specialists and librarians, and one weekly class visit is scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to meeting the needs of diverse learners.  The library and its librarian should be available for instructional visits AND free-choice visits every day.  EVERY DAY.  And pre-k students should be visiting the library, too.

5) Figure out fund-raising for the library, because virtual book fairs don't cut it (and they're no longer an option) and this pandemic requires more reading material for students, not less. 

*****

That's it, somewhat abruptly, for this December 31st reflection. If you've been reading along, I hope that your 2022 is full of health, happiness, safety, peace, joy, affirmation, laughter, kindness, uninterrupted sleep, satisfying meals, creative inspiration, and good coffee.

Happy New Year.