chaos

As a teacher there is something magical about the first days of school.  The gleam and smell of newly waxed floors, the way all of the pencils are perfectly sharpened, the white boards are pristine, and the lesson plans are still perfect- unspoiled by lack of student knowledge or equipment failure or pep-rally schedules.  It feels clean and new and perfect and like if you hold your breath and do everything just right, everything might turn out neat and clean and according to plan.

And then comes February.  And you look up for a moment to survey the chaos around you and think - what happened??  And I have to remind myself every year that it is OK.  The act of learning is not neat and clean- it has all kinds of bumps and hiccups and if you are paying attention to what is being learned, you miss some stuff- like the pencil shavings on the floor and the lab supplies in disarray and the fact that all 20 of the white board makers in your room only kinda still work.

Today felt like chaos all over.  I walked in the door from school and before I had my coat off, Jonathan had dumped out all of his cutting food, two boxed sets of books, and was playing a game that involved rolling tiny rings one at a time across the living room floor.  In every direction the scene looked like this:

I tried to take a moment in the kitchen to regain my composure, but was dismayed to find every counter covered with something.  I could feel my chaos welling up inside me about to explode when Jonathan ran in and said "Mommy, which one do you think goes faster, the blue ring or the green one?!?"  And I saw, amid the utter destruction of all order in my living room a tiny little scientist investigating his world.  Setting up and testing theories, wondering, discovering.  And I remembered that learning is not neat and clean- especially when you are little. So I got back down to sit "criss-cross-applesauce" with my little man and roll those rings all over the livingroom.  Tidy can come after bedtime tonight.