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middle 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.

Adult friendship drama

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I was talking with a friend yesterday who was feeling incredibly saddened by a recent shift in his friendships. A tightly-knit group had “split,” so to speak, into three tightly-knit people with the other two on the periphery. He said, “I feel like there’s something wrong with me–what did I do to not make them want to be as close with me anymore?” I was struck by how similar his thought process was to mine (instantly jumping to the conclusions that it’s something wrong with YOU, not remembering that there are two people in a relationship so the issue could very well lie with the other person).

He then followed up by talking about how these other three write on each other’s Facebook walls all the time, about their inside jokes and plans, and how he feels very much an outsider when watching all of this without being a part of it. That REALLY made me think, because his comments sounded very much like those of the middle-schoolers that I work with. That is not to say that I viewed him as being immature, or his sadness as unimportant; but more to say that issues going on when we are young still creep up into adulthood. He is 23 years old and Facebook is still presenting problems for him. He still feels left out. That makes me really sad. Maybe that’s because I partly understand it; it’s easy for me to jump to conclusions upon reading something on Facebook or Twitter that I’m not a part of. It just made me think a lot; we tell our middle-schoolers and high-schoolers that these issues “get better” when they grow up, and in a lot of ways that’s true; there’s much less petty gossip, bullying, and deliberate attempts to induce jealousy. But it’s all still there, even if to a lesser degree. Even if it’s to a less deliberate degree, which in many ways, is significantly harder to deal with.

The thing is, which I’m realizing more and more each day, it’s really up to us to make things how we want them. If there are issues, waiting around until they magically resolve themselves just doesn’t work. We’ll be waiting a long time.