Sometimes, when I feel really frustrated with my job, I come back to a moment I exchanged with my former special education director at Rocketship. She was the best. She made us feel seen and heard. She understood our struggles. She wanted us – as teachers – to feel supported. While also wanting to make sure our kids got what they needed.

At the time, I was working with a child who struggled with some really challenging emotional issues. I am no mental health expert and I constantly felt like I wasn’t giving him what he needed.

During a meeting with all providers for this kiddo (teacher, school psych, mental health counselor, administrator, etc.), I broke down and cried. I said, “I don’t know if what I’m doing is ‘right.’ I don’t know if how I respond to him is appropriate.” I cried and I cried and I cried. I was so uncertain about my approach. I was uncertain if what we were doing for him was the “right thing.”

My SpED director looked at me and said, “What would your pie in the sky be for him? If you could have an ideal day for him, what would that look like?”

And I just stopped. Because I had never really thought of it. I knew what *we* were doing felt like it wasn’t working. But what would I do differently? And, if there was a way to do it differently and do it better, could I envision it? If I didn’t know what the ideal was, how could anyone step in and help me move in that direction?

That’s where I’m at with my current situation. If somebody asked me, 
“if you had an ideal situation for your kids, what would that look like?” 

Do I feel like I need more support? Yes. But do I want another body in my classroom to support these kids? Probably not. It’s another person that takes up space in our already small classroom.

Do I want my kids to be in my room all day long so it wouldn’t be so damn hard to figure out schedules for 6 different grade levels? Yes. But do I want these kids to be in a self-contained classroom all day long with no opportunities to mainstream with their gen-ed peers? Absolutely not.

I really don’t know what my ‘pie-in-the-sky’ would be for these kids. I don’t know what an ideal day would look like. And that’s probably what makes it so difficult. I don’t really know what I need some days and it makes it hard to advocate for some blurry vision I can’t describe. Most days, I just feel like the whole system needs to be wiped out. Start from scratch. But I have no solutions as to how to make it better.

In the mean time, I’ll continue chugging along. I’m really happy to be doing this school psych program because it forces me to think about systemic issues and ways that we can have a role in shaping and building these systems. It also helps me step back and see the larger picture.

The reason things feel messy right now is *because* our kids are being included. *Because* these learning issues are being flagged. Fifty years ago, my kids would have been written off as behavior problems, incapable of learning. Now we know better. And when we know better, we dig deeper. And when we dig deeper, things feel really messy. I think we’ll get it right soon enough. Hopefully in my lifetime. I think we just need to be OK in a messy system. Not passive. Not giving in. Still demanding change. But also remembering just how far we’ve come.