This post is reflection on the first school day of 2008-2009 schoolyear:
The wierdest this today was looking in the mirror. Let me explain: When a schoolyear starts for a teacher there is a long routine of tasks you must do. You have to get the room ready and make the classes with your grade level and get all your “ducks in a row” to make the room a place where your kids can learn in the coming year. This takes a lot of time but after almost 10 years of doing it, there is a comfortable familiarity with it all. In a way, you feel the same age as when you started year after year.
Walking by the window I caught a glimpse of my graying beard and I realized that I am not the 27 year old I was back in 1997 when I first started. I’m married, I have a 1, 3, and a 10 year old at home to take care of. I’m filled with much more knowledge but none of that will ever keep me young. I’m sorry to admit this but being young forever sure would be nice. If I didn’t have to worry about dying one day, imagine the teaching I could develop! I’d be a dynamo machine that made every kid advanced.
I’m only joking, sort of. I guess at 39 now I am thinking about my limitations more than my abilities. Maybe that’s good, maybe it makes me better at what I do. Limitations can help us use our gifts in a more focused way. If we know they are all we have, we won’t fail to use them. I know my strengths as a teacher and I plan to use them this year to bring my students to higher scores. That’s the goal for them and for me. While we make it there we will grow in other ways but the scores are the target and I feel energized that this year, as my beard inevitably continues to gray (metaphor and symbol) I will strive to use my gifts to make a difference in these 30 kids’ lives. Bring on the 185, I’m more ready than I’ve ever been!
P.S. After driving home I heard an amazing song by ColdPlay that seems to be written exactly for the sentiment of this post.
