First off, suggestions on how to find the silver lining… Between sometimes negative staff departments, frustrated students, very long hours, not enough desks for my students, and a host of other daily distractions, it has been getting harder and harder to stay positive. Normally that’s not an issue for me, but lately it has been quite difficult. SO, any simple sayings, thoughts or images that can keep things with a sense of possibility would be awesome.
Secondly, I need some suggestions on fund-raisers. I want to provide some extrinsic rewards for my students (a trip to a college or pro basketball game for everyone who gets an A or B first semester and a trip to a Shakespeare theater second semester; gift cards to local spots; school supplies and books; etc.)… But I am at a loss for how to fundraise, especially since the money probably won’t come from my students’ parents or from them… Suggestions?
On a final note, today was rough. One of the students at our school (not my student) was shot in the back this past Friday, and he got out of the hospital this evening. There was some discussion about that at school today. I wanted to curl up and cry tonight, but I graded tests instead.
Prasanthi
God, that is so terrible about the student who got shot. Thank God he’s okay, its just horrible thinking about how many victims there really are in those situations, including the shooter because he’s just a kid himself. All we can hope for is that their families can deal with it, I don’t blame you at all for feeling as down as you did after that but I’m proud that you found the strength to do what you had to do! That shows a lot of strength of character, Sarah.
As for the silver lining…I would say keep your thoughts focused on those 1 or 2 students whose lives you really have a big impact on and probably don’t even know it. I’m willing to bet that for a lot of your students, school is their escape from an even more stressful home and community life. And just as you probably view the end of your day as the time to finally find some time to relax until another stressful day at school….they’re seeing it exactly opposite, counting down the hours until the stress and unhappiness at home ends so they can be back at school where somebody is actually encouraging them. So at the risk of sounding cliche or corny, my advice is to always keep them on your mind and push through positively because the one day you might not feel like planting a fake smile on your face might be the day they need it most!
As for fundraising suggestions….I remember in Middle School, what motivated us the most to actually fundraise was that if we all raised a certain amount of money, then the school would throw us a dance, and there’d be a huge sign up on the wall that would say something like “$1,697 more for Spring Fling” or something like that, and we’d all be so excited every time the number dropped. That was the best perk for us, and always worked better than individual prizes. As for what to fundraise, the door-to-door fundraisers SUCKED ASS all the time, I remember the best ones in high school were when groups would get together and sell FOOD. Seriously, people would just be so excited when they saw tables set up out at lunchtime selling cupcakes for a buck, or chocolate bars or something like that. And they’d constantly sell out, cuz its so easy for people to just pull a buck out of their pocket and make an impulse candy bar purchase. So you can split the class up into X amount of groups and have them each come up with something they can sell, like a food item or maybe a service like….”5-minute manicure for $3″…..(these ideas aren’t lame, they’re actually ones I’ve seen my fellow classmates do over the years and they worked! lol)
K, sorry for the really long entry but I really feel for you so I had a lot to say….I hope it helped a little!