Natural Remedies

I am one of those people who HATE going to the doctor when I’m sick. When I was younger, my sister and I spent many days of our lives at the hospital or the doctor’s office. My sister was born sick and had an extensive list of allergies. There were not many times I don’t remember having medicine of some sort. Thus, now I try to use natural remedies whenever possible.

Now, I’m not one of those crazy people that would rather die than go to a doctor. I have my limits. But if I can defeat something naturally, you better believe I’m going to do it!

As I mentioned earlier, my Valentine’s and Family Day weekend did not turn out the way I thought it would. It was supposed to be a fun, relaxing weekend. I did have some fun on Valentine’s with my husband (we needed to have some fun together), but my throat was messed up and I felt an overwhelming sense I was getting a fever the whole time. And, as of course it would have to happen, I progressively got worse and worse. So I pulled out some natural remedies.

These are the ones I’ve tried this current time:
-Nasal Rinse (netty pot but in a bottle)
-Hot baths (epsom salts, bamboo oil, rosemary/mint mix)
-Aromatherapy (water diffuser with Immune essential oil from Saje)
-Kombucha tea
-Smoothies (to keep up some nutrition)
-Vitamins (a multitude)
-Raw Garlic (oh man… this is strong stuff!)

Unfortunately, this did all not work as good as I thought (or maybe not as quick as I wanted), so I added in a couple more things:
–Helixia (This stuff is actually pretty natural and I do think it works!)
-VICKS Kleenex (The absolute BEST Kleenex! There is no denying the VICKS in it helps!)
-Allergy Meds (I must have sneezed more than 50 times yesterday. I was desperate!)
-Benylin Cough & Cold (I just wanted to sleep and prayed that it would help.)

Unlike usual, somehow I only woke up with one really bad coughing spell last night. I’m guessing the massive amount of mixed natural remedies and some over-the-counter meds helped a lot. But this morning, I still feel sickly and my nose feels dried out like a desert. My husband is going to pick up a humidifier on the way home. The air here is way too dry (not that the mountain of Kleenex I used yesterday helped…).

I’d love to hear if you have any more natural remedies that you have found worked for you? My grandmother used to wrap a wool sock around her neck, we bought ingredients for garlic soup but haven’t made it yet, my mom suggested putting half an onion at the bottom of both of my feet, and I know you can make a nice hot glass with honey, lemon and cayenne pepper. But I’d love to hear some tried and true remedies!

Click on the number sitting in parentheses above and leave a comment!

Week 10 Day 2: You Are Capable Of More Than You Realize

Well, this morning was nothing short of a little rushed. My car has not been looked at yet, so my husband had to drop me off at work on his way. This was not a big problem, except he underestimated how much I have to get done in the morning. It was truly my fault we weren’t out the door sooner because I didn’t sleep last night. Honestly, this teaching thing has a way of consuming you. I need to get a grip on this thing!

School went fairly well, but I did notice my shoulders were very tired/sore. I was simply lifting papers out of the huge stack I had graded, and handing them back to the students. They must have gotten a good back workout yesterday (shoulders must have taken a brunt of it).

My students were fairly good today, though they did seem a little more active than normal. Then again, we did a practice for our language arts PAT today (2+ hours of writing), so I guess I can expect the pent-up energy.

After work, I had to wait for my husband to come pick me up, which was totally fine because I was able to get some more things done at work, and when he finally came, I absolutely refused to take work home with me tonight. After taking over my life so much, I needed a night off. This was a phenomenal feeling.

At home, my husband straight-up told me that I had to take a nap before the gym. I chose not to argue, and simply told him I need to eat first, because in the rush of the morning, I had not packed food, and therefore was only able to eat the organic and natural carrot/curry/coconut soup that was in my fridge, as well as two containers of Greek yogurt. I was not running on anything much for fuel.

Strangely enough, this is where it hit me: I was craving healthy food! In fact, with all of the things in our house, I wanted fruit, cottage cheese, and pumpkin spice Nuts n’ More peanut butter. Seriously! I was in love and so happy this is what my body was craving.

My nap turned into a 4-hour sleep. And I felt awful when I woke up. My body ached so badly, my limbs barely functioning to move, and my eyes could barely stay open. But this is when my body hit autopilot, and somehow, I changed my clothes and made it downstairs.

On the way to the gym, I did something I never do, nor do I usually advise doing. I had my usual iced coffee, but also a doughnut. I researched ahead of time, and picked a doughnut that was lower in fat, and mediocre in carbs. The reason for my decision was the simple fact that my body was in need. It needed a carb that would energize me quickly (gym was only 2 minutes away). The truth is, I didn’t even want a doughnut. I try to avoid a lot of sugar like that. I wanted to stop eating it after two bites, but I knew it would help. So yes, I ate a doughnut.

We got to the gym, and I expected to feel worse than yesterday; the mental battle, the lack of ability, but I was totally wrong. Tonight was legs, and I normally hate, no, despise leg workouts. But today, I loved it! I don’t know where the energy and motivation came from, but it was undeniably there. I killed my workouts, things seemed easier, I felt stronger and I was smashing my records. Here are some of the things that were different:

1. I normally struggle with 70 lbs on prone leg curls. It seemed so semi-easy tonight!
2. I was mentally thinking that 90 lbs was the weight I used for seated leg curls last time, curled it, found it easy, only to find that the most I had used was 85 lbs in the past!
3. For the first time ever, I did smith machine lunges. Wow, these killed me, but I could tell were working my legs well.
4. I normally hate barbell walking lunges, and tonight my coach wanted us to drop the back knee twice each time instead of the normal once when walking. I dreaded them before I did them, did them and LOVED them!
5. Normally, I find leg press heavy. I don’t know how else to describe it than that. I completed my regular presses with 120 lbs, thinking that was bigger than normal. But for some reason, I was in a stellar mood and decided to do another set with 180 lbs. I ALMOST got my husband to spot me, in fact I even walked over to him, but then decided I need to do this on my own. Well, let me tell you, I did it! Every single rep, and it was not as hard as I thought. So I decided to do more. And I raised it to 230 lbs. And you know what? I did it for 10 reps! Oh my goodness! I was so happy, so ecstatic. Almost double the weight I’ve been using to train, and yet I am so much more capable. I was SO happy!

And again, we went home, and what did my body crave? Cottage cheese, fruit, raw veggies, and pumpkin spice Nuts’ N More peanut butter. Honestly, what more could I ask for? I crave a healthy diet, I’m growing increasingly stronger, and I feel great. My body may not be losing the fat I want, and as a matter of fact, quite a few of my clothes seem to be fitting tighter, but when I consider the shape my body is taking, the progress I’ve made both mentally and overall personally, I’m so happy! I’m obviously going to keep my fat in check, and will be monitoring it, but this strength is such a boost in self-esteem; I’m loving it!

Week 7 Day 7

Today was an interesting day. As you can probably guess, the first part of this day was focussed on sleeping. Man, I can’t remember the last time I was this exhausted! But anyways.

I got up and did a little bit of cleaning and a little bit of laundry. Just enough to keep us going. I’m pretty sure I’d need to have 3 days to clean this house at the point it’s gotten. It’s so overwhelming. I hate it. I’m really struggling with this.

Later in the day, towards evening, my husband and I decided we needed to get out of the house, so we decided to go to a movie. The only thing was, there were no movies we both wanted to see. So we did something we’ve NEVER done before. We both went to see our own movie that played close to the same time.

The problem is, I cannot handle violent and brutal movies. I just can’t. And my husband obviously tends to go more towards that action-type movie. Whereas he doesn’t like “little-kid” movies and I do. So this day, there were no half-way agreeable movies, and this was the best we could do.

The movie I saw was Alexander and the Horrible, Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. I can remember reading this book when I was younger, and so to me, this would be a classic! The movie was actually well done and I quite enjoyed it. It even made me laugh! It’s a great family choice!

My movie finished a little before my husband’s, so I had to wait for a few minutes. But it was nice to be able to sit down and discuss the movies we saw with each other. I don’t know how often I’d want to see separate movies, but it wasn’t such a bad experience.

Later that evening, we decided to go to our old gym, the one we absolutely loved. This was good because I was able to finish yesterday’s workout. The only problem is that I never should have done half a chest workout one day to finish a chest workout the next day. My chest was hurting SO BAD. I could barely do the rest of the workout.

Note to self: If doing a certain muscle group, finish that muscle group that day.

We also took a trip down memory lane by going to a restaurant that we use to go to all the time. It turned into a bit of a date night after all! ❤

Week 6 Day 7

So my mother started texting me at 4:00 a.m. My students woke up at 5:00 a.m. And despite any effort to make them go back to sleep, they were wide awake. And so, my girls were showered, dressed, hair and everything done and ready for church by 6:30 a.m. And yet breakfast wasn’t until 8:00 a.m. and church service not until 10:30 a.m. They spent a lot of time singing praises to God and even got compliments on sounding like a heavenly choir. I was so impressed.

Now the boys were a different story. They did not get up until much later. And although I turned on the lights at 7:15 a.m. so that they wouldn’t miss breakfast, I got yelled at to turn them back off. Oops. All in good fun though!

Following the church service that was held for us, we ate lunch (again, so thankful I had my meals prepared so that I could say no to the meal they had). However, what I didn’t expect was that I’d miss the activities for the next few hours.

We discovered a problem that had occurred between two students and it was immediately deemed that one student had to leave. Of course, upon hearing he would have to leave, he decided to make a run for it. I HATE running, more than I could ever explain to you. Not to mention running through brush and over hills. No need for a workout today. I got my cardio in for sure!

After everything was taken care of and settled back down, we were getting ready to play football in the town on their professional field. The kids played so well, even despite some unfair calls that were made, but that’s a different story. The problem was how cold it got. I had stopped and gotten snacks and hot chocolate for the students for later as even I was literally freezing watching the games.

We left the field at 11:30 p.m. (can you tell how long of a day this was for me?). The students were debriefed when we got back to the gym, they were thankful I had gotten snacks, and spent the rest of the night celebrating and having fun. After we sent them to bed and made sure they were all in bed, we went over to the weightroom and had a little fun workout session of our own. We kept checking in on the students who were of course tired and went to sleep very quickly. Following our workout, we sat around eating before bed. Again, couldn’t have done this without my pre-made meals. Thank you so much Fresh Fit Foods!

It was a late night of going to bed around 2:00 a.m., especially exhausted from already running so much today. But I was never more happy to see my sleeping bag on the floor, no matter how uncomfortable it was.

Week 6 Day 4

I finally got it last night on the treadmill. I finally thought up a few examples that really showed me things that were very difficult to forgive, but I have forgiven. As I reviewed my list, I realized these things hurt me more than they have ever made me angry. I narrowed my list to four things as I only wanted to summarize yesterday’s topic before presenting what I had prepared for today. My list consisted of the following: My father did not attend my high school nor my university graduations, my sister almost died due to the doctor’s mistake of putting latex elastics (of which she’s allergic to) in her mouth following jaw surgery causing her to near death, my friends burned down my family’s camp in a drunken stupor one Halloween night which contained years of memories that will never be replaced since my family was in the middle of renewing the insurance, and finally, the one that is still able to make me cry at any moment, is the fact that my grandfather died when an impatient driver went to pass a semi-truck and ran head into my grandparents’ vehicle coming in the opposite direction. Four extremely difficult situations I had to go through.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that yes, these things cause me sadness, but I don’t hold grudges against the people who were guilty. And here is what I figured out:

1. My life philosophy: Hate what the person did, but don’t hate the person. The truth of the matter is, if sin did not exist, the person would not have done what they did. God did not design us to be this way, but we all sin because of the fall in the Garden of Eden. When Jesus returns, sin will no longer exist. Therefore, just as we reflect on ourselves being sinful, hate the sin but not the person.

2. Allowing someone to suffer what we choose to be consequences for what they’ve done is a method of passing judgement. We are not the ultimate judge. Yes, Earth has judges for major sins that are here so that hopefully less sin will be created, but who are we to gossip about those who have made mistakes against us? We cannot claim to be the judge that God is, and thus should not carry out such punishments.

3. I thought of the story in John 8 where the people brought forth the prostitute expecting Jesus to agree that she should be stoned. However, Jesus responded in a way they didn’t expect, and that was that whoever had not sinned should be the first to cast a stone. Yet, nobody could because everyone had sinned. In this same way, how are we to again, punish others in such a way yet expect forgiveness for when we do something?

4. In a way, Jesus became the person you are upset at. Jesus did not just die for one person’s sins, He died for ALL of humanity’s sins. Think about that. In order to truly die on the cross for us, He had to essentially become all the bad things that we are. He became the bad in all of us. And I thought if I were to see the face of Jesus in the person I’m upset at, would I really be able to stay upset? This is a hard one to think of…

With that being said, I quickly summarized and prayed that those ideas would stick for anyone having difficulties with forgiveness. I then proceeded to continue with my topic for today.

Today’s School Spirit Week day was Tacky Day. Quite frankly, I hate this day. I don’t find “fun” in dressing tacky. But I do it to support my students. So tacky it was. When trying to think of a topic associated with dressing tacky, it quite easily came to me that the topic should be on how life can get messy. And I had a great personal story about this that I was given permission to share, and that was on my step-sister, Natalie.

Natalie was a child with a free spirit that did not easily get along with my dad. Quite understandably, it is hard for a man to come into your life that in a way seems to be taking place of your dad. I can completely relate to that. But she was encouraged by her true father to move out early. She moved out with her boyfriend at the young age of 15. She then proceeded to get involved with drugs which eventually led to many (I believe up to 15) times of being in and out of rehab. Then, the fearful happened. She became pregnant.

During her pregnancy, she seemed to come clean. She moved back in with her mom and my dad, and although there were still some arguments between my dad and her, she seemed to be doing alright. Several months later, twin boys emerged. They were premature, but healthy. I sing my praises to God that those boys were and still are healthy. So many things could have happened. But as they were now born and she fed from a bottle, it was becoming noticeable that she drank.

One Christmas break, my sister and I were at our dad’s, and our step-mom noticed she was getting an alcoholic drink. And so, my step-mom locked up the alcohol in her bedroom. What came next, none of us were prepared for. She went ballistic. She was pounding on the door, screaming that it was unfair, that they should allow her to drink, and finally that she was going to get her babies and they were going to leave. This got so out of hand that it got to the point, the almost unbearable point for my step-mom, that the babies were in danger and the police needed to be called. Keep in mind, my poor dad is running three things at the same time: apologizing and trying to lighten the mood for my sister and I, trying to console and counsel my step-mom, and keeping my step-sister and her babies in the house while keeping unwanted people out.

When the police came, they gave her the option of going upstairs to say good-bye to her babies. She fought and fought them until they eventually and literally dragged her out of the house. If only I could share with you the nightmare. I have never heard someone scream and yell like I heard her scream and yell that night. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought she was being stabbed to death. The awful things she was yelling at her mother would definitely be carried for a long time. That’s when I really knew what addictions could do.

She was released the next day, and I expected that when she called, she would at least ask how her babies were. But do you want to know the ONLY question she asked? When her mom could come get her and take her to get her Methodone shot. No joke. I was in shock. To care about a drug replacement shot to help with her previous addictions over the care of her own children.

Later, she did move out into her own apartment with her children, but by that Friday, my dad and step-mom had the boys over for a sleep-over that they would never return from. She was not using her finances for the true care of her children but rather to feed her addictions, and so learned that she could live on her own again while visiting her children as they were kept at my dad’s.

As much as I’d like to say that she got the help she needed, I can’t. I can remember a conversation we had late one night where she was telling me that the worst thing for her was realizing that she had no dreams left. She used to want to be an actress, to be all of these big things in her life. But she realized that her addictions have drained all of these hopes, all of these goals and dreams out of her, and she had nothing left. Perhaps this was one of the most painful realizations for her. Because one night, in winter, I received a phone call from my dad. His voice was shaky, and he sounded as if he was ready to cry. As much as Natalie and him fought, she was still a huge part of his life as his step-daughter. And I believe this is what made it so difficult that the police had shown up on their doorstep the night before asking them to come and confirm the identification of the body they had found under a bridge. Upon investigation, they had come to believe that she had jumped off the bridge as there was only one set of footprints in the snow that led to the railing and thus leading to the body below. What a hard thing to accept. After years and years of drug abuse, of alcohol abuse, and of accepting that you have nothing left to live for in life, I can only imagine the pain she must have been in. She knew that rehab wouldn’t help because it hadn’t in the past. She couldn’t seem to escape the relationship abuses from men, the fact that she couldn’t find the help she needed nor the inability to escape the addictions that had control over her. This was nothing short of terrible.

Of course, the following fear came that child services would take the boys away. But my dad and step-mother fought for custody of the boys and thankfully were awarded it. And to this day, they are doing the best they can while parenting as grandparents. They boys are doing so well, I’m happy to report. But one day, and my father has talked to me about this, he knows the boys will ask where their mother is, and why they don’t have one like all of the other kids. And he fears that conversation. He fears revisiting and telling them that their father has never wanted anything to do with them and that their mother was so involved with such horrible things that she couldn’t take care of them and eventually couldn’t even take care of herself. What a hard conversation to have with children. I can’t even imagine.

I asked the other teachers and staff to think about the children we have difficulties with, to think of the things we don’t know about in their home lives, the burdens they carry to school each day. Because sometimes, it only takes one family member to make life messy for everyone else. And when especially dealing with children, those background messes need to be considered.

I had to rush through this worship a little as you can probably imagine as it got a little long. But I left people crying and with deep thoughts. Because the truth is, sometimes life sucks. Life can be unfair. The devil is at work so much in our lives, trying to tear us away from our Father who loves us, and unfortunately he uses things like drugs and alcohol that have a way of hooking us and can be very difficult to get away from. Things like drugs and alcohol have a way of consuming people and making the gift of life that God has given us seem pointless. And unfortunately, I see the devil in much of Natalie’s life, laughing and smiling at her misery. And yet in the same scene, I see tears running down Jesus’ face as He watches the destruction of His daughter, the one He loves more than anything. It’s a sad scene, not an easy one to grasp and still not the easiest one to talk about. But as my father said, it’s important to use these stories to help prevent others from making the same mistakes and if this story will help someone, then it is worth talking about.

I didn’t workout today as it was a rest day, but I do hope that you reflect on this, especially if you or someone you know is suffering with addictions. Addictions are something so incredibly unfortunate and cause so much pain to everyone. Take intervention now. Pray that the God of healing, the God that has already defeated all evil in this world will help you overcome. Because there is no power greater than God’s.

Week 5 Day 1

After all the excitement of last night, I thought I would wake up and be so full of energy for the day. How wrong I was. I felt lethargic and spent most of the day battling the urge to take a nap, attempting to get some housework done.

Somehow, I managed to drag myself to the gym that afternoon, but I am so thankful that I did! The gym woke me up, my motivation reached an all-time high, and I pushed as hard as I could. Aside from my minor setback that my one troublesome rib muscle had to be pushed back into place at one point (weirdest thing I’ve ever dealt with), my workout went extremely well!

This week’s training is still in a circuit style, but the days are more body specific. Last night was a focus on shoulders, biceps, triceps and abs. And to finish it all off, I spent 25 minutes on the stationary bike. I used to hate biking, and look at me go! I think I’ve fallen in love… 🙂

Tonight, I’m so excited to go to sleep. Tomorrow I get to pick up my first two days of my Fresh Fit Foods meals! Yay! It’s like a huge treat! So for now, off to bed, and I will be waking up excited to go pick up my meals! Wahoo!

Week 3 Day 4

Today was an interesting day. Again, for some reason, I was sort of running late for work. The difference is that I made it on time and was not officially late today. However, in my rushing, I made some food and threw it all in the bag, but noticed that I had left one very crucial ingredient to one of my meals at home. Ugh. I hate when that happens!

It turned out that I had enough food with me to get through the day, and with the stress I had to endure at work today, it turned out alright.

I’m the opposite of an emotional eater. When I’m very stressed, I don’t eat.

So today was a very rough day. High stress, wanting to quit and go home. But of course, I stayed and dealt with it to the most I could and recruited some higher authority to help. I hate days like today.

So bad, so stressed…

So the workout for today was good. There were 5 exercises, designed in a circuit. Then I finished with 25 minutes on the stationary bike.

I tried an exercise for the first time today. It was called spidermans. I found them to be awkward at first, and felt better at them as I went on. But let me tell you, they are not as easy as I thought they looked. Funny how that works!

In summary, I’m keeping up with my workouts and my food is still on point! I have not craved anything, I keep my food either totally ready to go or at least prepped so that it is a very quick assembly. I feel good, I have not had coffee all week, and my workouts have been solid. So far so good and hopefully to continue with the good!

You Just Never, Ever Know…

I had already written this blog post once, believe it or not. As I sat crying, I poured out my heart on this computer. But just as I was finishing, my computer decided to glitch and it was all lost. I didn’t have the heart to write it again. Except this time, I’m not crying my heart out and writing in a different manner.

You see, normally I don’t work on Fridays. Well, I do, but from home. Last Friday was different as my grade 6s and I had a PAT scheduled for Friday morning. So therefore, we had to be there.

The PAT went alright, and most of the students had rides to leave right after, the others had soccer practice. I had a few of my students from last year come to visit me and study for their upcoming exams. I was able to make practice questions for them so that I could help them if necessary.

While they were studying, I received the most unexpected message from my mother. It was news that one of my friends had just died. By “just”, I mean within the half hour. It hit me like a deer in headlights. I didn’t believe it for a second.

This girl and I were on the same basketball game in high school, were in the same classes, and even though it had been awhile since I had seen her, we had been very good friends.

I maintained control as my mother began to tell me more details of the car accident, the head on collision, the fact that her baby and her were in the one vehicle, and a woman in the other. Both the baby and the other woman had been sent to the hospital as code 1 which means the ambulance is travelling fast with flashing lights as the passengers have serious injuries. However, my friend went code 2, which meant deceased and nothing they could do, so no rush, no flashing lights.

I just couldn’t believe it. Even now, the emotions are starting to rise again, but for the first hour, I just couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t think of anything else, but I managed to have a small conversation with a cousin of mine who also know my deceased friend. We discussed how the tiny town (population around 100-200) we came from never has anything like this happen. We discussed how we take it for granted that everyone we know will just be there when we go back to visit. We discussed how we really need to realize that anything can happen anywhere. And that’s when it really started to sink in.

Now, being at work was not the place I should have been. But I managed to hold it all back while the students were still there. It was when they decided to leave that the tears started to fall. I didn’t full out cry just yet, but managed to keep it still mostly contained. My husband showed up early from work to pick me up. I kept it in until I let him in the door and we got back to my classroom. I couldn’t even answer him what was wrong without starting to bawl. It sunk in so deep.

I cried and cried and cried, my husband not really knowing what to do. He helped me to pack, and took me home. I continued to cry and cry and be upset and wonder why these things had to happen. I knew I’d deal with this whole situation, but I didn’t want to have to deal with it. I went through the deep of emotions of how life is unfair and how her 8-month old baby is left without a mom. I was in a deep, dark, painful place. And that’s where I was originally writing this blog.

You see, just like I knew in my head the whole time, I would learn to deal with it. Loss is a thing that unfortunately occurs in life, sometimes way too frequently. You can’t avoid it. But you can learn to deal with it. And that’s what I had to do.

I cried myself to sleep. I slept for quite awhile. When I awoke, I had a huge headache, and had the eyes of an alien. But my husband asked if he could take me to a funny movie, just to help any he could. I agreed, and in order to not rush me, we planned on going to the late movie, and he went out to the gym for a quick workout so I had time to get ready at my own pace.

Fortunately with an extra application of some good Mary Kay make-up, and a good hair tease, I was able to mostly hide those alien eyes and the fact I had cried for hours. My husband and I went out, he was very caring, and made sure I had the best time possible at the movie.

We came home, I went straight to bed, and was able to wake up this morning (still with a headache), but ready to begin again. The tears may be gone, but the pain I feel for my friend and her family is not. A life is not something that can be replaced. This sweet smile will not be seen again. But the memories we hold of her, the pictures that capture the moments of her life, and the baby that will forever be a reminder of her are left behind. I don’t know the update on her baby. He’s still alive and I’m assuming he’s stable. The extent of his injuries are something I don’t know. But what I do know is that he has an extensive, caring family that will be there to raise him and to remind him of the wonderful mom he had.

You just never know what will happen. A life that could be here one minute may not be here the next. Really, there is no time to fight, there is no time to hate, there is only time to focus on making sure the people you love know that you love them. Make sure you’ve made them a priority in your life. Love them, spend time with them, and go to bed each night knowing you’ve done your best. You honestly just never, ever know.

Proud Moments – Teacher

Now it is true that almost every class has a very large range of students. Some that catch onto new concepts very quickly, and some that take more time to understand. Some that get their work done quickly, and some that may not finish their work. Some are motivated, some are not at all. Some follow the rules perfectly, some do not care for rules at all.

Since I teach grade six, they are in the “preteen” stage where hormones and emotions start to get in the way of relationships and learning. Many people will not teach this grade because it is less of dealing with academics and more dealing with behaviours and attitudes.

I have been through a large amount of struggles in this grade, and even though students have had their “ups and downs”, there are some students who continue to uplift me every day, whether they do it on purpose or not. I could sit and wish for a class that followed every rule I gave them, do everything I say, and never once put up a fight. But what kind of teacher would I be? I would have no students to teach me how to handle different situations, I would have no experience in behaviour management. Now don’t get me wrong, I’d probably love it. But that’s just something I want, not something I need.

One thing that people often don’t understand about teachers, is that there are indeed things that we don’t like about our jobs. The endless paperwork, the struggles with our students, things that make us cry and even sometimes want to give up at the end of the day. But there are moments when our students surprise us. It’s a promise that our hard work pays off. And it is incredible the amount of times these “miracle moments” have happened to me, and to other teachers that I’ve talked to, have completely erased the crying, the stress, and the grey hairs we’ve earned from the struggles with those students.

I have a couple students that have been really negative in the classroom the past few months. I have tried, and tried, and tried to figure out what was going on, but to no avail. I began to think that these two students just couldn’t be together because they fed off of the negativity from each other. It really seemed as if they began to hate me, and quite a bit of the other students noticed it as well. I had a teacher’s mentor in my room for about an hour, and she was able to see who these students were before I had even mentioned anything. It was incredibly obvious.

I cannot express the amount of times I had talked to these students, met with these students, discussed things with the principal, ended my days exhausted and frustrated, ready to pull out my hair, and even ready to cry. It really seemed like there was nothing I could do.

Finally, this week, one of those “miracle moments” happened. I pulled the students out of class because their “obvious hate” had come back, and talking to them together showed no results, no progress. When I talked to them separately, I wanted to cry. One of them immediately broke down crying and poured on me all of the home-life situations that were going on. The other one expressed how they thought I was the one who hated them. All of these things that I had no idea about, or I had been looking at in a much different way. All I can say is I ended that day much differently that I had been. These students let me in, and I understood.

I sometimes have to check with myself if it’s really the student I’m upset with, or if there is something underneath it all that I’m actually dealing with. I don’t expect all students to explain everything going on, but I do maintain a level of acceptance in my class and a level of safety that must be kept. My students know that, and although there are still some behaviour problems (mostly talking or lacking motivation to work), we usually can come to an agreement and understanding.

I encourage all of you that are teachers to take a second-look at your students. Sometimes we just don’t understand what is going on. There are always stories of students who had teacher after teacher hate him/her just because they never really stopped and try to understand the reasons why. Relate to your students, talk to them personally. Don’t be just the “mean teacher”, be someone who cares. Not always, but quite often, you will see a different side, a different light, and a deeper hope for the success of that child.