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elementary school

The REAL New Year

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For me, for most educators, for most kids, and for most parents, I think that the end of August/early September feels more like the new year than January does. The start of a school year is when things shift. Kids are a grade older. Classes change, teachers change, classmates change. Kids are taller and more grown-up looking. New clothes are bought, new school supplies. Everything is fresh and it’s a true beginning. January? Not so much. Fairly unimportant and insignificant.

I love the first day of school. I had butterflies in my stomach driving to work this morning – anticipatory, excited, beautiful butterflies flying around inside of me.

I loved watching the kids. I loved seeing kids who were petrified just last year, walk in, calmly say hello, and confidently state, “I’m so excited!!”

I loved seeing kids greet their friends, and the exchanges of, “Yes, you’re in my homeroom!”

I loved the trust that the new little kids put in us – to say goodbye to their parents and allow us to lead them into the building.

I loved how one student straight out said: “I am so nervous.” We talked about how teachers, not just kids, feel nervous too, how it was also teachers, not just kids, who might have had trouble sleeping last night. I loved how following that, another student said to me, “This is so weird. I just feel weird being back.” I loved that I could say, “I get that. Me too.”

I loved the idea of a new beginning – clean and crisp where the possibilities seem endless and we all have that new reserve of the core belief that we make miracles happen at this place.

I loved it.

Happy “New Year” to all of you – may 2015-2016 be a truly magical year.

Simplicity of childhood

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I spent so much of my childhood wanting to “grow up.” I’m still working on figuring out why that was. Partly, all of the older people in my life (older cousins, teachers, etc.) seemed so glamorous and magical. I wanted to be like them. And part of me, especially in my older childhood, felt like when I “grew up,” things would get easier. I didn’t realize how wrong that was, but that’s another topic.

I wanted freedom, wanted to make all my own decisions, wanted to have responsibilities. Rightfully so; most children yearn for those things. But now that I am “a grown up,” I find myself yearning desperately for the days of childhood. I see the kids I work with in elementary school who sit in the same chair each day, who are told when to to to lunch and recess, who are told “Re-do it and bring it in tomorrow, don’t worry” when they incorrectly do their homework, who have teachers and guidance counselors and therapists watching out for their every move, whose big excitement is getting a new pack of colored pencils to use for a social studies map-coloring lesson. And oh, how I miss that. I never realized how lucky children are to not have to make decisions, to be taken care of, to be carried around, figuratively speaking, by adults.

I wish I hadn’t given up playing with dolls because it wasn’t what “older kids did.” I wish a new toy still made me feel elated inside. I wish that rainy days meant a day snuggling in the cozy house, baking cookies with my family, and lying on my stomach on the floor, playing board games. I wish that I could still build forts. I wish I still believed that imaginary friends existed.

I miss it all.

And I think that’s a large part of the reason that I so thrive on working with children. When I’m with them, I get to act like them. I get to be childlike. I get to do all of those things. I get to nurture that little-me that’s still inside of me.