Where in the World is Here?

[jmposada-blog]

Here is where I explain how teachers get paid on their “paid” days off

So I have to defend my status as a broke girl more often then I care to admit. For most people, I’m one of max 2 teacher friends in their lives so what they see when they see me are paid long vacations, a 10 month work year, and someone who is always out of work in time for a 4pm happy hour. While I won’t deny that these are some amazing perks, they are also some of the hardest things about my job. So I work two jobs to make ends meet. I also work summers nannying and tutoring to make up for the income I am not bringing in because I’m not working. 

Let me make something clear. I don’t get paid over breaks when I’m not working. My money that I already earned while working during the school year on school days is put into escrow and pulled out of escrow over breaks like Winter Break, Spring Break, and Summer Vacation. I actually had a choice when I began teaching as to whether I wanted to escrow a percentage of my bi-weekly pay to be paid out over summer or have my full salary paid out throughout the school year.

I love that I will forever have a Spring Break. I love that I will always spend at least part of my summer living under the sun and in the ocean. I am also the first person to tell you that while it is a perk, I don’t have a choice within my profession, to teach 12 months a year. 

Summer school is now a 16 day 4 hour program for most districts unless it is offered online. And Summer School is usually paid at an hourly rate equivalent to the hourly pay of a first year teacher. 

Tutoring and nannying are great, but they don’t offer the consistent, hourly pay of a full time job. It’s a stop-gap measure at best. I spend my year working two jobs, then every summer work another two jobs so I can pay my bills and maybe save a couple hundred dollars in case of a catastrophic need. 

Frankly, if all schools went to a year round schedule and I could work 12 months a year and make enough to not work two jobs, I would, but I can’t. And if the next option you see is to leave the profession, then you don’t see the problem here. I should not have to leave my professional career to make enough to support myself. 

And it’s not the starting salary that’s so bad. It’s that most starting salaries are equivalent to what a 10th year teacher is making. In my third year, after completing a graduate degree program, I still make exactly what I made on my first day teaching. I will not get a raise this year, I may not get a raise I was promised next year unless the rest of the budget gets overhauled. Teachers in Kentucky just watched in shock as their pensions were gutted and were called lazy because in an effort to show what their work means, they used a sick or personal day to call out of work today. Over 20 counties saw closures. After the West Virginia teachers saw a 5% raise after they striked, I can’t say I blame Kentucky. I stand with their teachers. I stand by their students. If the kids can see it, so can we. 

I’m going to finish my rant with a quote from one of those West Virginia kids:

“If you put money in schools you're making smart people, and if you have smart people you can make more smart investments” Gideon Titus-Glover

[jmposada-blog]

Terrifying.

Terrifying. That’s the word I would use to describe the knowledge that someone might come on to a school campus and intend to cause harm to children. The word to describe what it feels like knowing that every day, I might need to hide my students and keep them safe. The word to describe what it felt like sitting in my classroom and trying to figure out what we would do with our kids.

Let me clarify. I teach children with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities and/or autism. Today, I spent 15 minute discussing with my paraprofessional how we could keep our kids quiet. Because our kids are loud. They are, “I hear my class coming from down the hall” loud. They are a kind of loud that can drive me very close to insanity. But they are mine. For 7 hours a day, they are my kids. I worry about them when they miss a day, I call parents when they are sick and check in, and mostly I am terrified that I will not be able to protect them if something happens while they are at school. 

This terrorist (and let’s not mince words here) pulled a fire alarm so that people would exit the building thinking they were headed to safety. He used gas bombs to blind those same people. Let me tell you about fire drills with my kids. They are a quiet as they get (they don’t like the sound the alarms make) and then they are always trying to escape the lines. We also do not move as quickly as I would like. That last part is the part that terrifies me most. While all the other kids would recognize that something was wrong when they heard gun shots and hopefully run inside, my kids might want to figure out what it was. They might try and run into the line of fire, at the very least we would most likely not be the first class into safety.

Then the students had to hide in classrooms silently for hours. These student silently texted parents, friends, and family to say good bye, that they were safe for now, or that they were scared. They sat in their pre-approved active shooter hiding spots in silence for hours until they could be safely removed from the building. I cannot tell you the last day I had all my students sit for 5 minutes without someone screaming, falling over out of their chairs, or getting up to run around. I cannot tell you the last time I saw any elementary school class where every student could sit for hours without moving or making a peep. 

These are my fears. How will I keep them safe? How will I keep them quiet for so long? Could they hide in the bathroom? Would tablets with headphones work? Do I need to have a bucket ready and full of supplies in case? Should I have snacks? Should we practice silent games we can play? Should we practice hiding every month? Every week? Every day? How can I make it such a routine thing that, like fire drills, they may not enjoy it, but they may be able to tolerate it without the fear I feel for them? 

Did you know that every time one of these shootings happens I spend weeks having nightmares about having an active shooter on campus? Mentally planning what I should do if this actually happens? Even my sub-conscious brain is terrified. They may be your kids, but a lot can happen in 7 hours. And for those 7 hours, they are ours. And with the reality that there have been 18 school shoootings in 2018, I understand that it is my tremendous and terrifying responsibility to make sure that they get home as safely as they got to school.

Pray for all of us. Pray that this time is the time the changes are actually made. Pray for the victims and families, and find a way to do your part to make the change.

[jmposada-blog]

Here again.

It’s September 1st. What did you think of today? Today I thought of my sweet Goddaughter. My sweet Emmi Grace. I thought of the millions of children every year who are diagnosed with childhood cancer. I babysat sweet Emmi’s big sister Nina and rather than putting Emmi to bed and letting Nina give her baby sister a kiss on the cheek, sweet Nina said goodnight to her sister in a prayer while looking at the “Emmi moon”. It’s the most beautiful, terrible thing she does every night. She sees any full moon and says “EMMI MOON!” with all her energy. She talks to the moon like her sweet sister really is up there on the moon and she’ll come back to her any minute. Sometimes its quick and sometimes she babbles on telling Emmi anything that comes to her mind, sharing her life with her sister one prayer at a time, the way I grew up babbling to my sister as she tried to sleep in the twin bed across from mine. I only wish they had been given the opportunity to grow up together and know that love and friendship you can only experience with your sister. But they don’t get that. Nina gets to grow up with a sister she can only talk to in her prayers and her dreams. Our family has a hole in it. We miss our sweet baby. Cancer took all this away from us. It took Emmi’s life from her. It took her right to live away from her. Her parents were told they had to make the choice for their 4 month old baby: to treat or not to treat. So they treated. Then they treated some more. And some more. And then they were told the treatment had made Emmi too sick. She couldn’t continue treatment. There was nothing more to do. Their were no more options. How terrible. How heart breaking, sould crushing, mind boggling. What did they mean no more options? I was there on that day. The day she went from okay to too sick. She was in my arms sleeping. I put a bow on her head at the hospital, put my laptop on the hospital stool, rocked this sweet girl that was finally letting us hold her again and watched Suits while rocking her. I remember her parents coming back to the hospital that morning and we took a picture of me holding sweet Emmi. It’s the last picture I have of her. I’m laughing at something said off camera and Emmi is bundled up in a blanket with that big bow on her head, sleeping soundly for a few moments. I had to leave again for my other cousins shower. The doctors were coming in to talk to them, I stayed just to hear the updates. Emmi was going to the PICU, but it was going to be okay. It had to be okay. It wasn’t good, but she was okay. I just been holding her after all. I helped my cousins pack all their carefully stored belongings and we parted that day. That’s how it happened. So quickly. Our world went from upside down to sideways. I drove home, under strict instructions to tell no one. Not yet. She was going to be okay. That’s what we told ourselves that day. Then the call. That terrible call. Come back. Bring my mom. We don’t know, but it might be time. Just bring my mom. And back we drove. In the pouring rain we drove to Orlando. How appropriate that it was raining as we held in our tears because it couldn’t be true. Emmi couldn’t be out of time. Not yet. She was so tiny. So much life left she was supposed to live. So many memorie she was supposed to have. Her sister was supposed to have her as a maid of honor. They were supposed to grow up together and hold hands, and play games like little girls do. They were supposed to wear matching dresses every year for family pictures until someone got old enough to say they didn’t want to match anymore. But instead we lost her. In that terrible moment, more terrible choices were presented. The oscillator pumped her tiny body with oxygen so quickly she shook. She was unable to move. We kept vigil. We prayed. So many prayers were said, over and over. Prayers for a miracle. Prayers that she would make it. Prayers that she wouldn’t feel any of this. Prayers that she was not in pain. We prayed so hard for that little girl. She was confirmed. I promised to guide her in the instruction of the faith. I knew she would guide me instead. Forever watching over us and the lives we lived in her honor. I still cannot listen to the Beatitudes without crying, thinking of her tiny body in the big room and those terrible days that never ended. They still haven’t ended and the truth is they never will. We will always, ALWAYS fee her absence. In family photos, at Christmas, only 3 days after her birthday, at Easter, so close to diagnosis day, in September when we go grey and gold for our sweet Emmi. We feel it forever. Those days will never truly end. Emmi never should have had to endure adult chemo adapted to treat a pediatric cancer. Emmi should have had a treatment plan that involved treatments designed specifically for pediatric cancer, and more specifically for ATRT. That does not exist. Pediatric cancer isn’t pretty. It’s not bald heads and smiling kids. In reality, pediatric cancer is a million terrible choices. They are terrible because treatment options are slim for pediatrics. I’ll say it again. It’s not pretty, it’s terrible. And that’s why you need to go gold in September. Because no child should be fighting war with a slingshot when the enemy has a machine gun. And no parent should have to bury their child because their were no more options. Join us and fight. Join us and pray. Join us and go gold.

[jmposada-blog]

A Year Ago Today

A year ago today I was probably getting ready for a good night's sleep after school and getting ready to spend my Saturday in Orlando so my cousin and her husband could have a night together outside of a hospital room. I was probably putting together my overnight bag, taking an antibiotic for bronchitis that had finally eased up on my lungs. I was talking with my mom about all the things we had planned for the summer. I was going to help my aunt watch her granddaughter and drive up to Orlando when I could to give my cousin the breaks she needed while making sure she knew her other daughter was safe and sound, and still being herself. A year ago today, I prayed fervently for a miracle that never came and a cure that still doesn't exist. I had no idea that only a few short weeks later we would be saying "I love you" one last time to our sweet Emmi Grace. That I would spend 3 days in Orlando praying for something I could do to help her, her parents, us all, but knowing the only thing I could do was be there. And a year ago tomorrow, I drove to Orlando, straight through to APH, came to my sweet Goddaughter's room, said, "Hi!" enthusiastically to her wonderful mama, got almost no sleep as I jumped every time a monitor beeped, held that sweet baby in my arms and hoped against hope that she'd be our little miracle. And today I can tell you, she is. We said goodbye to her on this earth 11 months ago. But our sweet Emmi Grace continues to touch our lives. In her sister's insistence on talking to the "Emmi Moon" which is as sad and tragic as it is beautiful, to the bracelet I wear daily to remind me she was far from alone in her disease and that infants like her are diagnosed every day. She's in the cards we sent to APH from my students for a sweet girl just like her, with the same cancer, still fighting for every day. And now I'm here. I'm a year older (for sure) and still sorting through all that I feel about missing my sweet Emmi Grace. I still feel like only yesterday I held her. This spring break, it hit me like a fresh wave of grief as I remembered spending last spring break huddled up at their house with her and her big sister, pre diagnosis, marveling at what a gift a child is and how sweet babies are, how amazing it is to watch them see everything with new eyes, and living for those baby snuggles. That was the last weekend I got to babysit for her in her home. And I'm so thankful for every moment I spent with her even when I am overwhelmed with grief. Even when someone asks about the yellow ribbon on my TShirt, and who is Emmi Grace, because I was so blessed to know her. And I miss her everyday. In every moment. And as I pack up my classroom in calm this year, I remember quickly shoving everything away last year. Telling my principal I didn't know if I'd be back for the last day. Taking day after day as it got worse. Canceling a trip that ways never meant to be after all. Missing post-planning as I melted into a puddle. And most of all, I remember sitting across from my cousin as she asked me to be her daughter's confirmation God mother. A cousin who, ten years earlier, had been my own sponsor. I remember standing in the room as I listened to the Beatitudes and promising to guide her. I remember tears rolling down my face because I knew she would be the one guiding me in every thought and deed for the rest of my life. That I would always think of her in my weaknesses and know I could do more, be stronger, and do better. And now I'm here, closing out year 2 in my classroom. A little worse for wear, but still making it through. Loving my students endlessly, praying ceaselessly that Emmi Grace will pray for me to have her strength and grace. And I hold the other babies in my life a little tighter. I love a little more freely. I let people know how I feel about them more quickly. And I try a little harder to be the Godmother she deserved to have. And I miss her, but try to heal my heart a little every day. With a kiss from her sister, a hug from her mom, and joy from the many blessings I still have here with me, with a faith that gives me the strength to believe that one day I will be with her again.

[jmposada-blog]

Thanksgiving here.

Thanksgiving is a time of reflection on all the things we are thankful for. And this year I am more thankful than I can say I have been previously. It’s definitely been a year of ups and downs. It’s been a roller coaster and I lost people that I loved and that I will never be able to replace, but I am so extremely thankful to have had the opportunity to know those people and be a page in their stories. I am so thankful for their page in my book and the effect they will have on me every day of my life. I am also thankful for those living who love and support me each day: my family, my friends, my boyfriend, those I work with, and everyone else. I can’t thank these people enough. I’m thankful for a roof over my head, food shared over a table, shoes on my feet, clothes on my back, a bed to lie my head on, hot water to shower in, and so many other things I cannot begin to imagine living without. The point of today, Thanksgiving, is no longer about pilgrims and native americans or what happened hundreds of years ago, but to remember what we all have to be thankful for and remember how blessed we are in this life. It is also a day to remember that others are not quite so blessed in their lives. To reach out and lend a hand to someone in need. So today and everyday, remember that you are truly blessed and reach out. Because someone needs you. 

And I’m here.

[jmposada-blog]

So proud to be part of team #emmigracesangels today and every day as we fight along side families fighting kids cancer because we're #strongertogether #cannonballkidscancer #morethanfour #childhoodcancerawarenessmonth #fallstampede5k (at Chik-Fil-A Fall Stampede)

[jmposada-blog]

September 1, 2016

Today Emmi Grace would be 8 months and 9 days old. Instead of cuddling her on the usual Thursday night date with her and her sister this evening, we remember her and continue into the strange world of Childhood Cancer as we begin Childhood Cancer Awareness month. Recently my cousin decided to form a nonprofit in memory of her daughter. To help families just like them who are struggling through what will be the scariest and potentially most devastating blow a parent can never imagine: the words, “Your child has cancer.” As I complain about a bad day at work, or the pain in my hip that won’t quit, I have to remind myself that this is not a worst day. This isn’t even close. Because that day in April, that was a worst day. Hearing that this tiny infant I had held two days ago was so sick she needed emergency surgery, that was a worst day. Finding out they would have to move to Orlando to seek the best treatment for her: worst day. Saying goodbye as she left us: that was a worst day. Her funeral where, though we know she is in heaven, we said our final goodbyes to that sweet baby girl: definite worst day. And then I remember the best days. When her sister was born almost 2 years ago. When she was born. Our excitement to watch their family swell with love. When, even in the midst of this all we were able to see the beauty of life. When she had 3 cousins born in those months right before and after. That while we miss her we can still watch these beautiful children grow and teach them about her and to love her. And to love eachother. So this September, go gold for childhood cancer. For every parent who has said goodbye to their child far to early. For every child that has had to undergo chemo and radiation or has been told there was nothing else that could be done. For every child who has heard their parents cry over fear for them and for every child who has tried so hard to be strong through the worst treatments we could imagine. And when you go gold, remember that only 4% of funding for cancer research go to pediatrics. And tell people. Because that’s not enough. So go gold and remember that children everywhere are hearing this diagnosis.

[jmposada-blog]

New Year, New Me?

New Year’s is my favorite holiday (besides my birthday. I love my birthday.) It’s a time of hope and reflection. A time of possibility and preparation and joy for all that we may face and all that is to come. It’s also a time twinged with a tiny bit of fear. Fear of the unknown and what could go wrong, but that New Year feeling, in that moment of the beginning of something you feel fearless, at least I do. I always have. 

As I’m setting up my classroom, beginning my new school year, amazingly enough my second year teaching, and starting another year of grad school and another year of the rest of my life, I can’t help but look back on the roller coaster that was my first year teaching. 12 months ago, I was about to start teaching in my own classroom for the first time. I was about to face 6 kids (eventually to become 10) and put on the best show of my life, because any teacher will tell you that the front of their classroom is the stage and teachers are the actors. And if we don’t put on a good enough show you’ll know it. Fast. A year ago, I had no idea I would be meeting 4 new baby cousins and welcoming them into our ever-expanding family. I had no idea that my cousin was just barely pregnant with twins and another cousin was about to be pregnant with her first child. Meanwhile, I had no idea that Emmi Grace was almost on her way to us, only 4 months from entering our world. Even given all I didn’t know, I was hopeful and fearful. I was panicked and joyous. I was a wreck. 

I think back and I think, if only I knew what was coming. If only we all knew what was coming. If only we all knew the strength we had and have and knew what we could handle.

And now I look forward with less fear and more faith then ever, knowing that I need to rely on it, that I couldn’t have survived without my faith, that none of us could have.

And I look back on how I ended last year. I ended my last school year at a low point. I look back and I see that my life was changed forever in April when my cousin told us she was taking Emmi to the hospital, and we subsequently were told her diagnosis and prognosis. My life changed forever in that moment and I was alot of things but hopeful and fearless, those were not words I could use to describe that week. Then, my weekly babysitting dates became nearly daily with her sister as she moved into the hospital, often hopping from my aunt’s house with Nina to the hospital with Emmi so her mom and dad could leave and eat and shower to return only an hour later. And once they moved to Orlando, it went back to weekly Nina dates and weekly Emmi dates in Orlando. And thinking back, on how painful this has to have been for them, a pain I can’t begin to imagine, and the pain I have felt for the whole in our lives from where she fit, I think of my Goddaughter who left us far to soon, and I know I wouldn’t trade one sleep deprived moment. I know I wouldn’t trade one minute of my last year because it made me the teacher and the person I have become. 

I closed out my last school year in a frenzy of hospital sleepovers and rushed packing up of my room and emergency babysitting, letting my school know day-by-day if I would be there and attempting to find the space to breathe and process. And I’m realizing only now how little I processed until now. That I needed time to process and push through the terrible emotions that accompany ends. Because all beginnings come at a price, the price of an ending. But there while endings bring fear, there is so much beauty in the beginning that follows. 

Because this last year wasn’t just full of endings, but also beginnings. I watched my faithful and wonderful Godmother gave birth to 2 healthy twin boys, both who bring light and joy to our lives and round out her family of (now) 6. And my other cousin and his wife welcomed a beautiful daughter into their lives. New beginnings and new hope. Fearlessness. Beauty.

And I know I have to do better. I have to be better. I have to be the person Emmi Grace knew me to be, and better. And to be the person that Charley and Nick and Gracie and Nina still believe me to be. The person that I hope to be for them in there lives. To be better for knowing them each, and loving them with every minute that I have to give them and in every second. Because we cannot have love without pain. And we cannot have change without pain. But we can love and change through the pain. And for them, I resolve to be better and change for the better and love better.

[psych-facts]

Be happy with nothing and you will be happy with everything.

(via psych-facts)

[jmposada-blog]

a year of learning from swd

I read something my freshmen year of college in an intro to sociology class that has always stuck with me about my chosen field... it went something like this:

“Disability is unique in that it is the only minority group to which each of us, should we live long enough, will belong”

It’s the most poignant quote about disability I have ever come across. I can honestly say that I have felt that on many occasions and remembered that class and continue to try and source that quote but have yet to re-discover its author. 

People think of disability and they think of the “big name” disabilities. They think Autism Spectrum Disorders or Down Syndrome, they think physical disability, they think deafness or hearing loss, blindness or vision impairment. People think disability and they think of something other than themselves. People don’t consider the other people affected by disability. They don’t think of the elderly who go from independent to requiring aid in their homes, who may forget their loved ones, who once walked freely, but now use a wheel chair to maintain their mobility. They think disability and they don’t think the child with cancer who cannot attend school because their immune system cannot fight an infection. They don’t remember their caregivers, siblings, families who live through these incredibly challenging situations. They also don’t consider the “invisible” disabilities. The things that just from looking at a person are undetectable. It might be the longer line at the grocery store because one of the cashiers processes more slowly, or the overly friendly child on the beach who doesn’t see why it would be odd to tell you about his favorite thing to do at the beach. It could be the person you forget to thank who comes after you to bus your table, or the person double checking all the documents at the courthouse because they have a passion for the law, but are not capable of making their way through law school. 

These kids are the ones I’ve spent the last year learning from. 

I would say I’ve taught them and I genuinely hope I was as good of a teacher as I tried every day to be, but I genuinely learned more about myself as a teacher in the last year then I ever could have taught them. And yes, some of my kids have those big name disabilities as well, but for the majority of my kids, it’s all about processing speed. I’ve learned that 30 seconds of wait time can be crucial even though there is nothing that seems longer than 30 silent seconds. I’ve learned that there is an end to my rope of patience, but that there are always people there to pull me back up. I’ve watched parents struggle to try and meet their child’s needs even when they could not begin to understand them and watched parents fight for their kids to get the best help they can get. Mostly I’ve learned that your capacity to love is greater than you ever realize. That my students aren’t just kids I teach reading, writing, math, science, and social studies too, but kids I genuinely love and hope for the absolute best for. They are truly mine and yours. Your kids have become ours. And I want to thank their parents for allowing me the joy of teaching their child and watching them grow.

On a personal level, my cousin recently learned that her daughter had end stage cancer at 3.5 months old. We were all crushed, but as she pushed on and tried chemo, I once again remembered my favorite quote. I remembered that quote and thought of my cousin who all of a sudden was thrust into the world of doctors and nurses, fighting by her daughter to make sure she had the best care. This is the world of medical disability. This is making sure that someone doesn’t underestimate you simply because you’re mom and not Dr. Mom. It’s fighting for your child everyday. It’s also knowing when it’s time to let go for your child and just love them fiercely until it’s time. Unfortunately, she had to feel that pain last night for her 5.5 month old daughter. And we feel it with her and love her and miss her alongside her. 

The fact of the matter is, people like to forget that disability will affect them in some phase of life. They like to distance themselves from the world of disability because if you pretend it doesn’t exist you may not fall to disability one day. Much like the old wives tale about not looking at animals while you’re pregnant, lest you wish your child to resemble one, if we tell children not to stare at a child in a wheelchair, if we hush our voices and avert our eyes from the parent struggling with a child in the supermarket or a grown woman struggling with her mother in a store because she has suddenly forgotten who she is with, then it won’t be us one day. But the reality is that one day, in some capacity, we will be deeply affected by disability and all you will want is someone to look at you honestly and ask if you need help, offer a hand, or say, “You’re doing a great job” and genuinely mean it. 

So be kind. Offer help. Tell people you love and appreciate them. Don’t waste your time. Don’t hesitate to be the hand or shoulder. Because one day, it will be you.

[jmposada-blog]

Faith, Hope, and Love

“13 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

I’ve spent alot of these last 2 weeks (how has it been two weeks already) reflecting on my faith and how it has come to be a part of every aspect of my life. In the last week I came across 1 Corinthians 13 on 2 separate occasions and it resounded with me especially in this time of difficulty for my family and myself. 

I’ve found myself easily frustrated, very stressed, and under slept over the past few weeks and I’ve been forgetting myself in everything I am worried about. I had my final observation in my first year of teaching, which to be completely honest could have gone about 80 times better than it did, but it was one thing off my plate. I had 2 final papers and an assignment standing between me and my first semester of grad school being done, and thankfully that went better than my observation. And finally we all had Emmi Grace in our hearts, minds, and prayers constantly. Like I said, a whirlwind of stress this week.

For the first time in a long time, I leaned entirely on my faith to push me through this time of stress. I “left it at the foot of the cross” (to borrow an expression from the Polo family) so to speak and let my week unfold. I won’t say I didn’t experience anxiety or stress, because I did,  but the grace with which I was able to handle this week was greater. I stopped saying no to opportunities to be with the ones I loved simply to “take something off my plate”, I started saying yes and meaning it with all my heart, and because of that, as I wrap up this week, I feel blessed to have had that time with family and friends, not just relieved to be done. 

The need to interject more love in my life really hit me. No matter what I do, if I do it in a spirit of guilt or obligation, it doesn’t fulfill anyones’ needs because I am not giving my best. If I go to work and work with these students who so greatly need me at my best and to be a consistent, loving, nurturing figure and instead I give them a stressed beyond belief, fed-up, annoyed teacher, not only do they not get what they need, but I don’t get any fulfillment, only frustration, from my work. If I go to babysit for my cousin, or sit with her daughter at the hospital and show up annoyed, frustrated, or stressed, not only will my cousin recognize this and feel like she is imposing by asking for help in this time of need but her kids will feel that stress or frustration when they need love, and I am not gaining from spending time with them either. I am not appreciating one of the greatest gifts we have to give, their time. If I do an assignment in a place of frustration, aggravation, and stress, not only will it take me twice as long to complete, but my work will be sloppy and incomplete rather than concise and perfected. 

So rather than approaching life in a spirit of stress and frustration, I have decided that the “yeses” in my life need to be given in the spirit of love. Because only with love is my faith complete. And only with love can I hope for a better day tomorrow for all of us. 

“13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

-1 Corinthians 13

[jmposada-blog]

right here

You know those TV families where everyone is super close and the whole family gets together for everything? Well take out the best behavior and perfect relationships and you have my giant, weird, wonderful, perfect mess of a family. My dad is one of nine and my mom is one of three. Between both parents I have 16 first cousins. I don’t mean the kind of cousins you see once a year and never again from the time you’re born, I mean the every Thanksgiving and Christmas kind of cousins but also the millions of moments in between. I have cousins I’m closer with and am lucky enough to live down the road from and cousins it would take a cross country flight to get me to, but at the end of the day, when the chips are down, they’re my family. 

In the last week, my family took a blow. My cousin (one of those right down the road cousins), adopted her second daughter in December. She was born on my grandfather’s birthday and I think we all looked to her as such a little blessing to come to us on a day that had been filled with sadness since he left us. Wednesday she went into the hospital. Thursday they diagnosed her with brain cancer, Friday we all began to process what her little world would become. At 4 months old she is facing chemo, ports, tubes, and wires. She’s facing a lifelong battle whether that battle ends in months or not for decades. Because the thing about cancer is, you’re never “cured” and you’re always just in remission. And I’m so glad to have been able to be right here to help however I could. Because as I mentioned, she’s not their only child and in this emergency situation, I was able to help watch her big sister. 

While I’m not really sure how this will turn out, I realized how blessed I am to be right here exactly. I deal with stress and anxiety over my own difficulties, from Grad School papers to Formal observations, from student behavior to faculty meetings, from parent conferences to testing. But if I did any other job or was in any other place I would not be able to be fully present to help my cousin help her baby. I know I overlook the blessings in my life far too often, and forget the huge impact my faith has in my life until I need to lean on it. And I’m so filled with peace knowing that I’m not hopeless or helpless in this battle she is just beginning. I know that there is something beyond this life and that brings me comfort in knowing that if she is done fighting sooner rather than later, she will be in peace and I firmly believe she will be with my grandfather up there watching her sister and waiting for us to come be there with her. I also get to believe that if she has a long life, filled with love and blessings, that one day I will get to wait for her “up there” so to speak. I also have the privilege of knowing that my prayers don’t go unheard or unanswered and those desperate thoughts, prayers for mercy and healing, prayers for moments of weakness and in moments of darkness are heard, and that because we are loved, they will be answered. And I am so filled with joy to have been right here because I wouldn’t have this moment in my life any differently. If she had been hospitalized and I had been even a long car ride away, I don’t know what I would have done.

[jmposada-blog]

what’s wrong here.

I was talking to a friend from work over (a few) drinks last week and there seemed to be something wrong with this crazy thing we call public education in Florida. I’m not saying it’s everything, but I’m gonna give you a couple questions to think about before I start in on my latest rant...

Would you want a lawyer without a law degree to represent you (or someone you love) in a life or death situation?

Would you want a doctor without a medical degree performing surgery on you (or someone you love)?

I’m going to take a wild guess and say you thought hell no in response to both of those propositions.

Next question: so why would you let your children go to school with a teacher who doesn’t have a degree in teaching?

My friend at dinner said something really poignant about that... “You can literally go to bed as a bar tender, wake up and become a teacher in six weeks.” 

Now I remember having alot of complaints about teachers from the time I was in the first grade. They were mean, they didn’t like me, they didn’t get it, it was all pointless. And I had the benefit of a private education at a school that requires all teachers to have a masters in education. I never once thought they had no clue what they were doing, only that I didn’t like what they were doing. 

It doesn’t speak to the failure of the teacher who stepped into the classroom after a whirlwind 6 week education crash course in teaching. It speaks to failure of the system that refuses to require teachers to hold a degree in teaching. I know I said a million things in college about how pointless my classes were, and I will never take back that I learned the most about teaching in internship, but that’s almost exactly the point. See, these six week insta-teachers? They get 2-4 classroom observations while they attend these EPI (education preparation institutes) classes. In internship, you get to teach a class full of kids and you get to feel the pressure and the stress and the reality of classroom management, and fail. But it’s not life or death. The child will still receive an education. The child will still have a teacher all year whether or not the intern decides to quit 6 months in. 

If we want kids who are better educated, don’t look to change the standards for what they learn, look to change who is allowed to teach. When we look to states with high performing schools and students, we see teachers earning a (still not high) but more livable wage, who are working in this field as their first choice, who hold degrees in education. In New York, for example, if you want a job in the worst schools, you need to have a masters in teaching to be competitive. That is setting kids up for success. That is setting teachers up for success. Because even when you do hold a degree in teaching, even when this is your first choice, it may just drive you crazy. 

Just what I’ve been thinking about here.

[jmposada-blog]

It’s a weird time...

Being half way between grown up and kid is a weird time. And that’s my here right now.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a kidult. I’ve been working on that presumption for a while because I constantly feel like I’m in limbo. I just turned 22, but I already graduated. My best friends are in their last semester in college worried about finding a job after college and I find myself thinking, “Holy Shit, that was an entire year ago,” more often then I care to admit. It’s not enough to say the time has flown, because it isn’t about how quickly it has passed, it’s that I’m still not quite sure where I fit in my world. I know I’m no longer Jacqui, ADPi, USF student, undergrad, but I don’t feel like Jacqui, full-time teacher, part-time grad student, full functioning adult. 

Like I said, I find myself in limbo. Do I go to the theme party on a Saturday night for my favorite fraternity, or do I stay in and have a glass of wine with my best friend after catching a movie and dinner with my boyfriend, making it to bed by 10. Am I too old to attend that theme party? Am I too young to be yawning and calling it a night at 10? I shouldn’t be, but keep me up past 11 and you may live to regret that choice when I become a whole different person when I’m tired.

I keep finding myself “here” where I don’t know if I fit there or there, and all I want is for here to be there or there to be here. I don’t know which there I want, I just want to be wherever I belong, in whatever category I belong. The teacher in me says it’s the anxiety. The me in me says I like things to fit into neat little boxes and I no longer fit into a neat little box. And as hard as it is to accept, if I can just pretend not to care about my boxless self and my organized chaos of a life, sometimes I get through the day without wondering where I am. If I can’t then I tend to look at whichever student happens to be freaking out and think, “I wish I could do that.” 

[jmposada-blog]

Free Speech, being PC, and the never ending battle over the R-Word

As usual, I am back “here” with a couple of things on my mind as of late, and as usual they were sparked by a couple of things that happened. So here are 2 big things that happened and one statement that gets me every time.

1. I received an e-mail from USF affirming that every student has the right to free speech, even if that speech makes others uncomfortable; however, in a place of higher learning, where we are meant to stretch and grow our opinions and beliefs, often by facing opinions differing from our own, we must remember to use respectful, civil discourse. 

I am completely and totally about this move on USF’s part. Go Bulls. Seriously we are adults supposedly attempting to receive a well rounded education which sometimes always means meeting people of different opinions and learning to have a civil conversation where you learn more about your own beliefs but also better understand the opposing arguments. 

2. Someone used the R-Word and said another person was being over sensitive when she voiced that the word made her uncomfortable.

Here’s the statement that gets me every time.

“It’s just a word, you’re just trying to be so PC. It just means like stupid. It’s not really hurting anyone. Sorry I’m just not a PC person.”

In the vain of completely supporting the right to free speech on this issue: If anyone has a valid reason to use the R-Word, please let me know, because I would compare it to the N-word, which I won’t even type for fear of backlash and because it is completely inappropriate. 

Here’s an argument I’ve heard a few times and I’m just going to say my piece in response and let it be what it will:

“It’s a medical term: mental retardation”

If that’s your argument I will give you a little wiggle room if you happen to have been attempting to describe a medical condition characterized by an IQ at least 2 standard deviations below the norm (aka below 70). If that was your intent: The new medical term is “Intellectual Disability” and I’m glad I could help you appropriately update your vocabulary. 

In the case of every other person who uses this word to describe people when they are acting stupid, foolish, or dumb: I’d like to ask you to reconsider your word choice and liken it to a word as derogatory for the large community of people with disabilities as the the N-word is to the African-American/Black American community. This will take a minute so bare with me: You wouldn’t say the N-word flippantly and say you “just aren’t PC” because you understand how derogatory that word is and how it was used for an extensive period of history as a slur for a whole race of people who have value, are among your friends (at least, most likely), and contribute a great deal to our society. Yet, you continue to use the R-word. If you think that the people you are offending don’t know, care, or understand what you are saying when you say “That’s so retarded” click here, here, here, or here (the last one is my personal favorite) and you will find members of the disability community speaking out against this largely offensive term which is extremely derogatory and makes people think of them as “less than”, “foolish”, or “less valuable than” other people. 

As someone who works extensively with children with disabilities, I watch the reality of this hit my kids at 8 and 9 years old. It is heartbreaking to watch a 9 year old hit herself in the head because she called her friend stupid, which made him cry, which made her feel bad for saying it. If my second graders can grasp this simple concept so can anyone: we don’t call people we love and care about names and if we do by accident, we fix our mistake, apologize, and correct our word choices. You see, the word “retard” follows these kids around. By the time they are in 5th grade, they will hear other kids snicker that they are in the “boom boom” class. By the time they hit high school, someone will use “retard” as a slur in their direction. Tossed like a knife at the integrated, but not inclusive, middle school. Because ideals of inclusion, assumption of competence, and differentiated instruction go out the window in the 6th grade. Then kids meet self-contained class rooms (and usually halls), full of teachers doing their best to reach them, but surrounded by kids who know all to well what kind of classrooms those are and aren’t afraid to toss it around the same way that kids did all those years ago passing the school “for colored students” tossed the N-word out. The R-word doesn’t mean stupid, foolish, silly, or dumb. As a disability, very simply, it no longer exists. As a verb/adjective it means to slow, or slow. But when used as slang for stupid, foolish, or dumb, it is derogatory, extremely hurtful, and poisonous to the climate of inclusion so many are battling for every day, where persons with intellectual disabilities are valued for what they can contribute to this world. 

So I’m not saying this to be PC, I’m not another PC Police, I’m just asking you to have some respect for people and not use a slur as casual vocabulary in your everyday life. Use a different word, I promise it isn’t that hard.

[jmposada-blog]

It’s hard being a teacher.

It’s hard being a teacher and it’s not for the reasons you expect. 

Here are 2 things that happened in the same day.

1)A student is so upset over not holding the hall pass that she throws a chair across the room.

2)A student reads a book called “I can” with pictures guiding the reader past the words “I can” to name the things she can do (i.e. a picture of a slide for “I can slide.”) and you would think she just found out she won a million dollars. 

Opposing things like these happen everyday in classrooms around the world. Things like these two things have teachers fighting tears for very conflicting reasons and trying to work through and process those opposing emotions as well as trying to continue instruction in their classrooms every day. 

I have to say that the sheer rollercoaster of emotions of each of those experiences, plus everything in between, can be completely exhausting: both emotionally, and physically. being the person who is firm and ready to help the student in crisis as well as the teacher who tells the child to “kiss their brain” because it just worked hard for them to read a book. Being the person that holds a child when they cry because they can’t take the anxiety of some looming thing we have yet to identify and then turn around and tell a child they need to look at the schedule to find their favorite part of the day, and answer their own question to teach self sufficiency takes it’s toll. The roll of a teacher is no longer one of teaching cultural norms and academic curriculum, but has often become a substitute parent, therapist, detective, problem solver, song singer, game inventor, and strategy master. To teach children you must be able to stand on your tiptoes and bend over backwards, while blindfolded and spinning plates on your hands and nose, so to speak. This job is not a job, because it creeps into every aspect of your life, far beyond the 730-330 and into the nights and weekends of problem solving on the counch or venting to someone who really doesn’t care what A said to B today or wait supposedly hilarious thing C said. Because it’s only funny because you know the student and their sense of humor. It’s only amazing when a child of 8 years reads a simple text when you have watched them look disheartened each day that they cannot do just that. 

These feats that we watch children accomplish every day seam so small to people who don’t see the mountain a student climbed to get there, just like the cliffs they fall down are incomprehensible to someone who doesn’t see the difference between a day with “one sad face” and a day with “one smiley face”. Being a teacher is hard. It is made only harder because the only other people who truly understand what you mean, are other people just like you, too tired to meet you out for dinner and drinks, or too weighed down by the 5 page todo list they have written down and thrown somewhere in the bottom of their school bag with too many things to do before they can shut it out for the night. 

So to my friends about to embark on this climb, it’s worth every second. But also, be prepared to cry more tears in your first year trying to be everything for your students because you will. And it’s okay. And they’ll be okay. And you’re doing great. Because, sometimes, we all need to hear just that.

[jmposada-blog]

As I’ve taken the last couple of weeks trying to decide what to write next about how I’m feeling “here” 2 things happened:

1: I ran into one of the kindergarten teachers at the school I work at on the weekend at the grocery store. This is not an all together exciting thing, running into someone at the grocery store, except I ran into this teacher as I filled my prescriptions and she worked behind the counter to fill my prescription at her second job.

2: I was talking to a new teacher friend who is in her 7th year teaching and recently moved from New York after a masters degree in Exceptional Student Education back to Florida, specifically into Hillsborough county and couldn’t believe the pay differential and that after receiving a masters, she received no additional pay. As we were talking she said, “Don’t they want high quality teachers who know what they’re doing? They’re pushing people out of education. I don’t know how people are single parents with kids on this salary, I can barely afford my dog.”

Both these things really hit me as I’m right here just starting my masters degree in the narrow field of Autism Spectrum Disorders and Sever Intellectual Disabilities and I for a moment thought I lost an extremely important grant that is helping pay for my degree. You see I emailed the man in charge of organizing the grant and (although it wasn’t until the second week of classes that I contacted him finally and I kindly asked him to clarify for me and waited 4 days of no response) was told that I needed to be more patient. Now the topic of patience is something I’ve written about before on my personal blog, but here is my theory about that in short: everyone only has so much and by the end of the day there is about an inch left of my rope, so don’t ask me to be “more patient”. I don’t have it left in me. But back to where this began. People want to say teachers are over paid or only work 10 months out of the year and thats why we are paid less, but I want to throw my 2 cents (and that’s all I’ll throw, because I’m a teacher and I’m poor) into the ring here. I teach because I have a passion for working with children, especially those with special needs, and watching their faces on the day they finally get something. The first time a kid really reads a word, even a simple word like get, for the first time can make the whole week worth it. I promise the look on his face can get you through the worst moment of the day. Looking back on an IEP (Individual Education Plan for students who receive Special Education services) and seeing the tremendous growth a 5 year old has seen since September is priceless, especially when his worst day now, looks like his best day then. That is why I teach. I knew from the time I was 6 I wanted to teach. By the time I was 112 my mom had told me I needed to understand that I was used to a particular standard of living and it wasn’t on a teacher’s salary. And I knew the entire time I was working tirelessly for my degree that I wouldn’t be making great money. But there are some things you can’t understand. Teaching is the only profession where everyone in the building is working unpaid, unrecognized overtime. There are very few teachers who walk in the gate at 7:30 and leave at 3:30. Those that do usually take their work home with them. Personally, I like mornings better so off to school I go by 6:00am. I rarely get to school later than 6:15am. I know teachers whose new years resolutions were to leave school before dark. I’m not saying we’re saints or should be making 6 figures (although in countries with the best performing schools, thats exactly what teachers are paid), but I am saying that it is important for the outside world to understand that it isn’t the exception, the teacher working 60 hours a week rather than 40, it’s the rule. And while I don’t expect a medal of honor for showing up early or staying late, I do expect, as should all teachers, a little respect for the profession we choose. 

Teaching has long been thought of as a backup plan. “Those who can do, those who can’t, teach.” We’ve all heard it a million times. Teachers are glorified babysitters. Teachers are so lucky that they get to play finger paint and color all day. These are things that every teacher has heard at one point or another, but teaching is none of those things. Teaching is a calling and a passion. I’ve come to the realization that it doesn’t take a special heart to teach (or to teach Special Education), but it does take a different constitution to be so equally frustrated and in love with something that rips you to pieces day by day and keeps you coming back. To care so much about the well-being of a stranger’s child. I can’t describe the amount of trust a parent has to feel they can put in their child’s teacher other than to say in many cases we spend more waking hours with a child than a parent. I also will say that in many cases we are surrogate parents, nurses, psychologists, social skills instructors, behavioral analysts, and oh yeah we also need to teach you reading, writing, math, social studies, and science. You’re a lawyer? Thank a teacher. Doctor? Thank a teacher. Banker? Investor? Grocery Bagger? Cosmetologist? At some point you had a teacher that made you feel safe. And cherished. And loved. And wanted. And important. And smart. And I guarantee s/he did it all while teaching reading, writing, math, social studies, science, managing 25 other kids, communicating with parents, and basically standing on one foot and spinning plates. So to the teachers that work two jobs to make it work: I thank you for your service to this profession and for not stopping when things are tight and better money could be made as a babysitter. Because let’s face it, they still get paid better than you at $10/hr + $1 per kid.