“Syrie. Syrie, bud. I got like 1 smoothie. It doesn’t last very long. And 1 smoothie and 4 assignments doesn’t add up, my guy. NGL [not gonna lie], I’m not vibin’ with ur workload. Like ur cool, but 4 assignments is not very cool. Know what I mean? Like I’m tryna make this smoothie last through ur class…”

Day Thirty Four. Got an email from a “smoothie talker” last night. There’s more to the story than what I shared above (always is), but she got my attention with her authentic appeal to my considering how much work I am giving, and how much work she is getting from all her other teachers, too. This was my response.

“As I said in the instructions, the practice is optional. And, chica, the 2 learning checks should not last more than 1 smoothie. Don’t do the practice, make an honest, no-more-than-one-smoothie attempt, and we will be all good. If that’s still too much, skip the sentence/sentence errors review learning check and do the parallel structure learning check. You know–you know–I will take what you got. You just gotta give me something. Deal?”

Too soft? Did I surrender too easily? Am I sucker for smoothies? I don’t know. Truth is, there’s a lot I don’t know during this time. I thought–I thought–I had taken painstaking steps to make sure this wasn’t too much this week, but maybe I was wrong. I don’t know. Maybe her other teachers are exceeding the prescribed limit to the workload. I don’t know (and they probably don’t either). Maybe there are “we-are-in-a-global-pandemic” circumstances at play here. I don’t know. I. Don’t. Know.

So, I will bend and blend with whatever my kids need, especially, it seems, with my smooth operators. And I will continue to meet kids in the middle we find–no middle the same, for no kid is the same. This, I know.

Happy Thursday, all. Stay safe and sane.