It Mattered

It Mattered

It started with a scream. Not the normal kind, the ‘teacher scream’ we all do silently in our heads, but an actual scream coming from the hallway. And that was the moment I knew: something was ending.

Every day I’m relieved that I’m midway through the school year. And then reality sets in that it’s only Thanksgiving break. In three days. Two small days of rest that never feel like enough. I’m just pretending I’m halfway through. It’s basically my body trying to gaslight me into survival mode.

Every Monday through Friday I walk in these doors, heart pounding, waiting for that scream and wondering if it’s for me. All I want to do is teach. Reading, writing, math, mixed in with some executive functioning skills instruction. But I’m interrupted by the bodies running through the hallways, or running out the doors through the neighborhoods. Some days it feels feral. The executive functioning skills just aren’t there, today more than ever.

You’d be surprised how many school districts have eliminated that social emotional curriculum all together. It’s like we expect four year olds to walk into kindergarten and suddenly know how to organize, sit still, and listen for six and a half hours a day.

These are kids who lose a shoe they are currently wearing. Kids who can’t remember the second half of, “stand up.” And kids who touch a wall every time they walk past it just because it’s there.

And impulse control? Every year at recess we take votes on which kid is going to get their tongue stuck to a pole. They lick tables, each other, and eat glue. They haven’t got self control yet. They aren’t flexible to change, they’re just kids, learning. It’s okay that we teach this in school. But we’re not anymore.

Hence, the screaming. High academic expectations with zero executive functioning skills. It’s like putting me in the pilot’s seat of a plane while I’m listening to the flight attendant tell the 500 passengers, “ready for take off.” This is dangerous. And so is school. My kids don’t feel safe here anymore. And neither do the other teachers.

But that’s not why I knew it was ending. I knew because a different school was calling. A school where I could be in charge to teach these skills before I put these kids in a plane that was sure to plummet. I don’t feel unsafe in school. I’m confident catering to low functioning social skills.

My language is adaptable, my approaches accommodated to even the student who licks every wall, not just one. The student who screams when I switch the station to another table, or throws all the supplies because I asked them to put a marker away and clean up.

That’s not what scares me. My fear is that we aren’t training these kids now. We aren’t using methods to help them with these skills so that they will gain them. And I don’t want to watch them digress. I want to start a school where I can build them to progress. A school for EF (executive functioning) learning.

While I continue to gaslight myself that the end of the school year is coming, oh, so quickly, let me paint a little picture of what that will be…

In my mind, it’s in my backyard. Alaska's beauty is undeniable, but the air so crisp it makes you sometimes regret your life choices. Six kids max. Maybe four on days when I’ve lost the two running away from the moose who came to hop my fence and eat my leftover vegetation from my garden beds.

There’s a yellow picnic table, slightly faded, the same color of my house, that is ready and waiting for my small group of kids when they need a “normal” seat.

The kids arrive and are bundled in mismatched snow gear. They walk into my backyard and immediately learn actual skills: visuals show them how to put their supplies in their designated areas. How to begin a task without even checking in. I’ve planned for them; I actually have time to plan here. And I’m not talking 40 minutes to print and organize worksheets. More than 40 minutes to design a system that teaches them to be independent.

The first “lesson” of the day isn’t even academic. It’s zipper management. Because in Alaska, if one kid can’t zip their coat, nobody gets to learn. We start lined up along the raised garden beds inside my greenhouse. It’s still cold but a fun transition. Six kids stare at me, half-listening, half-chewing on their mittens. It feels right. It feels manageable.

“Okay,” I’d say, “today’s skill is Problem-Solving: Step One: try something, try anything.”

One kid announces, “I know someone who has a greenhouse.”

Another kid states, “Can we play hide and seek and I’ll hide under these?”

Honestly? That would be a great place to hide. Kids under my garden beds would not be seen for days. Still, I replied simply, “No.”

Another kid is holding a pinecone like it’s a newborn puppy. (Where did he find that pinecone?)

A third is lying on the ground because their boot is itchy.

And somehow, here, in the imaginary backyard school, I feel less exhausted by it. Because teaching executive functioning isn’t an interruption here. It’s the lesson.

“Okay kids. It’s time to be in charge of your zippers. It’s not going to be easy. But when it gets hard, here is what you can do…

I give the kids examples of strategies for when they get upset or frustrated or when they simply just need to ask for help because they tried long enough and they can’t do it. And that’s okay.

After zipper management comes reading. We gather wood to start a fire and I show them how to organize it the right way so it lights quickly. The teacher lights the fire. We stay back a certain distance. These are skills necessary in life, and also practicing listening and following directions by respecting the fire.

We read around a fire pit that only sort of cooperates. Math happens with pinecones. Seriously with the pinecones…? We’re in my front yard talking about story problems that decide if it’s plus or minus when there’s movement in the driveway. We all look towards the large RV that is making weird sounds. We see it has grown legs, four legs. A giant head with antlers comes around within our view.

A moose.

Of course.

In my current school, this would mean 47 emails, 1,200 questions, and probably at least one child trying to pet it because “it looks friendly.” But in my backyard school, we practice flexibility.

“Okay team,” I’d whisper, “what’s our plan?”

One kid suggests we shoot it. Another suggests we give it a name.”

A third calmly says, “I’m scared, what do we do when we’re scared, take breaths?”

Yes. Take a breath everyone, it’s okay, we’re safe.

So we do, three tiny breaths you can see in the cold air, and then we gather our things and step slowly inside. Not panicking. Not chaotic. Just… regulated. It feels like a well oiled machine.

We stay inside for a while and that’s when writing happens. It happens with our minds imagining scenes that could be played out. Talking about plots and characters and settings as we draw it out. We write down a sentence. But the biggest subject, the one woven into everything, is knowing what to do when your brain says “NOPE.” And here, in this place I dream of creating, the kids actually get the time to practice it.

And that’s when it hits me: This is what school could feel like. Not rushing. Not reacting. Not trying to teach reading to a child who’s still trying to teach their body how to be in a body. A school where kids learn the skills that make learning possible. A school where I’m not constantly managing fires, literal or emotional, but guiding humans. A school where the screaming that started all of this isn’t a warning…

but a memory.

And as I picture these kids sitting around my yellow, faded picnic table, smearing snow on their folders and sounding out words between giggles, I realize something I haven’t said out loud yet: I’m not leaving teaching. I’m just leaving this version of it.

And by the time I’m done with this daydream… Thanksgiving break will be over.

Welcome back, Monday. I’ll be seeing a lot more of your disappointing, under-supported, energy-draining nonsense soon.

But honestly?

One day my Mondays won’t belong to this circus. They’ll belong to my tiny EF school — six kids, one backyard, zero district drama. A place where routines actually work and nobody screams in the hallway unless a moose walks by.

And I cannot WAIT for that Monday.