Another super day

I woke up yesterday with a headache.  It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great either.  I dragged myself to school.  (Teachers have oodles of sick days that we never take because it is not worth the sub plans and fallout.)

If I'd been able to have a different sort of job, where I could sit sedately and not be around loud children, it may be have been OK, but I quickly crossed over to migraine territory.

Please don't yell, I said.  

It didn't matter.

My hearing is fine, I said.  You don't need to be so loud.

It didn't matter.

I had one of my migraine pills in my desk drawer, like one of those pills a spy carries in case of emergency.  I didn't want to take it because it makes me feel so weird and dizzy and awful, but it is better than a migraine, so I finally went for it.

It was a wild ride.  I had to sit down for a while, but I powered through, like you do.  As time passed, I felt a little better.  My headache was gone and I was just slightly dizzy.  

Then writing happened.

I had assigned them books on Native Americans on Epic, a website with digital books they can read.  They were to look through the books and decide which Native tribe they wanted to write about.  This is the exact same thing I have done every year, with zero drama or problem.

This was not like other years.

The books I assigned were about specific tribes or areas where tribes lived, like Native Tribes of the Southwest.  There were also some general books about Native Americans.  

I had about 5 kids come up immediately and tell me they had decided which tribe they were going to write about:  Native Americans.  They would point proudly at a book titled, Native Americans. 

That isn't a tribe.  They are all Native Americans.  Pick which tribe.

They said the tribe they wanted to do was Crazy Horse.  That isn't a tribe.

More of them said Native Americans.  That isn't a tribe.

One girl wandered into a different collection I had assigned earlier about weather.  Hurricanes, she said.

That isn't a tribe.

It shouldn't be astonishing, because it happens so often, but I am always astonished at times like that:  How is this so hard?!?