Knew Math

This was the second morning in a row that I woke up feeling just a little frustrated. The problem was that I have been trying to figure out how to make something good out of the meeting that I have to attend today. Let me preface: I, along with the students in my class, have been off for the past week on an extended Thanksgiving holiday. One of the last things that we did as a class was to take a math test. Sixty-four per cent of my students did not pass this test. This morning's meeting is being held to discuss the progress of our new math program. While I have many adjectives to describe our progress, I am also acutely aware of one of the main challenges that my students face. I know that at the end of the three hours that I am at this district confab that there is every likelihood that I will return to my classroom to find elevated levels of stress on the part of my kids and/or the substitute left in charge.
My worry is based on sound data. It is the data that this math program has provided me, and the most interesting bit of irony in this interaction is that the fourth grade teachers will not return to their school sites until after the math lesson has begun. How am I to affect change if I am not in my classroom? On the morning after a week-long vacation? On the morning after a trimester test?
A lot of people, colleagues and well-meaning friends, have told me that I should embrace those moments when I am released from my daily grind. Cherish those jury summons as a reminder of all the things that live outside the walls of the school, they tell me. Take a sick day, they admonish me. Take a mental health day, they warn. They are right, of course, and I have tried to take some mild satisfaction out of sitting in a conference room this morning instead of rushing back to the same old place I rushed out of a week ago Friday.
But that's where my mind will be. That's where there is still work to be done.