crazybusy

So, I am back to feeling crazybusy and not particularly effective and wondering what the point of all my crazybusy-ness is. I feel like I am working too hard - that the end result is not always justifying the things I have to do to get there.

Sometimes I think that is part of being a social worker - that for any number of reasons there is too much bureaucracy which weighs the job down. Sometimes I think that's part of working in a school system - 1) I am a guest and as such I always have to remember I am a guest (and noone likes a bad guest) and 2) schools are also full of bureaucracy (ditto above). Sometimes I think it's just that I am a workaholic and people pleaser and will go above and beyond trying to meet everyone's needs and make everyone happy (impossible scenario).

But I know that the results are important, even if it feels like it took too much effort to achieve the result. The results usually deal with someone's life (and don't we all think our lives are important?) and helping them to reach some level of what they or society consider success. So in reflecting I can say, yes, I am glad we achieved that. Even though I may say "Why did it have to be like forcing yarn through the smallest needle eye you can imagine?"

Back to the Middle School survey question

This is really a two-fold question.
One, I think there is the bigger question of why people do or do not get involved when there is something amiss going on. I think that sometimes we have had experiences where our perceptions have been negated by others. Like I will hear from teachers that they will not interfere in bullying situations in school because they have been told in the past by students: "we were just joking around" (or something similar). Or police officers who are called in on domestic violence calls, only to have both parties turn on them or the victim defend the perpetrator. So when that happens you don't want to do anything the next time (Learning theory = avoid negative outcomes; none of us like to be told we are wrong, especially teachers and police officers :-) authority figures that they are).
Two, what do you do when you see something bad happening? I think that there is no preparation teaching us to jump into intimate situations and put ourselves at risk. It runs counter to our survival instincts. And often there is no sense of "what can I do in this situation." Personally I love having a cell phone for this reason - I can call the police and not have to put myself at risk. I see a car broken down or an accident or whatever and I can just call and feel I have done something... But if you are 10 years old and you are walking home from school and see bigger kids take some other kid's glasses, I think you have no idea (if you even have a cell phone) who to call and what to ask for. And you would have to be crazy to run over and tell them to stop (unless you hope the humour of your challenging them will cause them to collapse in laughter allowing you and the other child to run away).
And yes, it depends on the situation, and tons of dynamics, and if there are no simple answers as an adult, there certainly is no easy way to help kids.

Interesting blog I found

I found an intriguing blog (while looking for information on a therapist I wanted to refer a student to), which prompts me to think I could do so much more with THIS blog - at a professional or personal level (since my professional and personal seem to be so intertwined these days). Any way - here is a link to the blog in case you're interested in checking it out.
http://gandalwaven.typepad.com/intheroom/

so we really are in middle school SURVEY

So, here is a question - what do you do when you see some one trying to hurt someone else? It's one of those questions that continuously runs through our humanity... Kitty Genovese in New York City... or the student whose glasses are being stolen by some bigger kids.

What did you do when you were in middle school? What do you think the right thing to do is? What would you tell a 12/13/14 year old to do?

Take a Deep Breath and try to collect your thoughts

Well, it has been incredibly hectic, with lots of chaos. But today was Rosh Hashanah and schools were closed, and it was an incredibly beautiful day. Life is good.
JT loves middle school. He thinks it's wonderful. He even loves walking home 1 1/2 miles. The only slight glitch was during the first week when he would not do his homework because he was too busy reading or sneaking and playing video games. But then we set up a schedule and an agreement that there are NO video games until the homework is done, and so far (a week) it's worked very well. (knock on wood). He now has reread all the Harry Potter books for I think the 4th time, so he will have to find some other reading material. (He's waiting for the sequel to a number of books to be published -- I used to hate that -- it's part of why I gave up reading science fiction and fantasy books, by the time they published the sequel I had forgotten most of the details in the previous book).
PB seems to be adjusting ok to 1st grade. It's harder to be sure with him. Most of the time he seems to like it. But there's still a sense of "but...." The school itself it going through such upheaval and angst and the adults there are clearly stressed but being very professional with the kids, but you know that the kids have to have some sense of things being tense because kids usually are so good at picking up on the tone of things even if they don't understand what's really going on or why.
My jobs are crazy crazy crazy. Teaching a new course at University is such a huge amount of work - and you know me, I always get anxious about it! And the high school social work stuff is just lots of intensity at the moment... I don't know if it's the phase of the moon or karma or what! It's just stressing me out.
So a day with no work and just my kids and hanging out and taking care of life business (banking, groceries, and going to the book store) is blissful.
Happy New Year!!!