Year 8 Begins

 

It's the first day of school. 

(!!!!!)

I am 8 years into the life of this profession, and I am happy to say that while I still picked out very carefully what I will wear, there is no longer a pit inside my stomach on these days.  I feel happy to be Miss Christians again.  I feel excited to meet 186 people again and welcome them to my class.  



186 people.
I have been praying about this. 
(Will you pray for me too?....?!)

That is a LOT of people.  I get it now though....at least enough to know what does and doesn't work for me.

You want to know what I don't believe in?  What doesn't work for me? 

Laminating things, obsessing over what people will think of me...(students, parents, teachers, admin), assigning homework I don't believe in out of pressure, letting kids talk to each other poorly, having an unorganized desk, accepting an eye roll from an angry 8th grader......

What I do believe in is this....

The importance of welcoming people, good storytelling, giving people a minute to take a breath, Psalm 139 over every person in this world, that sometimes less is more, organization, firmness and kindness, and that God is with me in my classroom. Also that history is wonderful. 

So are historical thinking skills.
The possibility of helping build those skills in other people. 
And new textbooks.
I could keep going here, but I won't.

In 8 years, to avoid the burnout teachers often feel, I also learned that in the morning I am crazy introverted.  And so it is that before this big crazy extroverted day, that I am simply drinking coffee (with Thin Mint cream!) and listening to this song.....

...which, seriously, is medicine for the soul, and the only thing that makes sense at the end of the tired days.  There have been many days that I have wearily sat down in the 4 'o clock hour at that trusty old desk with this song.  After school, with the buses pulling away outside, this song was the one that fortified me again before I graded that waiting stack of papers.   

But for today, no papers!  Just an extrovert's dream, which is of course lots and lots (and lots) of introductions and lots of interesting people.

Cheers to life.