It's sad when we lose one of our colleagues. A class has closed down as students need to move elsewhere..and today one of my closest friends at work said that if nothing changes they will have to fire her.
And the most absurd notion is that we need extra assistants, we need an esl specialist, we need a floater...a teacher who can sub in when someone is absent.

We need to believe that we are in the right place at the right time, that life is leading us to our higher selves, that the circumstances that we need to grow are given to us.

Into the untrodden woods we go...

I remember one day, a few years ago, I suggested we get our writer's notebooks and walk around the school to see if we got some ideas, got inspired. Whilst we were walking in the woods the kids asked me why they could never enter the woods behind the fence, with a padlocked gate.
On closer inspection, the padlock actually seemed open! And I thought to myself, oh why not? This is too tempting an opportunity to pass by.
"Great kids! Ok then, be careful now, we will enter where no student has ever entered... we are entering a lost forgotten forest"
We had to brush away cobwebs and fallen branches from our paths and came across some medieval looking white statues along the way- a Roman God or Catholic warrior or something- and I suddenly thought Shit, what if there are any guard dogs here, guarding these grounds?
I could just see the headlines saying 'Teacher responsible for the death of 5th grade students". Oh god.
"Ok kids, that's it then, let's see now who can run towards the gate now, and see who gets there first!"
Phew! No damage done, I closed the gate, put the padlock back, just how I'd found it...left it open in case another fellow teacher might feel inspired to tresspass.
Never heard any complaints, no summoning to the coordinator's office for a telling off.
Feels fresh in my mind, leading my students into the wild woods surrounding our school. Can't remember whether they got inspired or not, but what we shared that day was priceless.