Dream

This has not been a good year. I am over stressed, in large part because I cannot let things go that I probably should (easier said than done), and in part because the administration and students will not recognize the position I have been put in. I will survive this year. It will all get done. Beyond that, I don't know.

So I had a dream last night, just before I woke up.

I am in an elementary classroom – looks like kindergarten or 1st grade but the kids look to be about 9 or 10. I know I am not certified in early childhood and almost say something about that several times in the dream but know it won’t help.

I have just been put in this room and want it, even though I know my limitations.

It starts with there is an issue, the reason I have been brought in. A child, a boy, has been threatening to hurt the children and the children were removed to another place while we deal with the child (I say we but I am the only school employee there). Eventually he is gone and the children return and I am doing math. Then the boy comes back and I am trying to surreptitiously get the other children to leave the room, go to the office and let them know what is happening. They leave the room, but don’t go to the office or come back in or go in the closet where there are all kinds of toys so they can play.

Eventually the kids leave, the boy is handled, and then the room is filled with parents (mothers) who are all angry, want me fired, say I am not handling it well, their kids are in danger, etc. I cannot get them to listen to me about what I can do for their children, that the boy has been removed and is no longer a threat – they just keep getting louder and louder.

At some point I go into a little cubby area and call school secretary to tell her I need to talk with the principal because I need to know what I can tell the parents. She puts me on hold and I end up hanging up on the hold to deal with the parents without any advice or help.

Toward the end I go into a closet that connects my room to another. It is filled with toys and the kids want to play with it. A janitor brings in a big box which is some kind of play kitchen set up and the kids are now not leaving to do anything constructive.

Then I woke up.

The boy is the teacher who was in the room before. He was never a threat to the kids and is not in the room now, but his presence is still there.

The children and the mothers are the students in the class, sometimes young, sometimes “adults” but never really acting like adults.

The room is my perception of the level of math I am trying to teach.