It’s that time of year. There are no more holiday breaks. There are no more long weekends. There is only the long, weary walk of every teacher trying to make it to the last day of school. We must endure the testing, the field trips, the play days, and the rambunctious apathy of students that know the end is near. We begin countdowns on our boards that we say are for our students, but really those countdowns are just another lifeline to sanity.
Teacher friends, I feel you, and I’m here for you.
My biggest problem this time of year is that my current school year brain shuts down while my next school year brain wakes up. I begin to feel that all the changes I imagined making while I was teaching this year need to be made before I begin to teach next year. I begin to make list after list, create YAGs, do CPGs, worry about novel justifications, and align TEKS. I start to panic at the amount of self-inflicted studying that is piling up in the form of books I have assigned myself for the summer. The summer that is EXACTLY 2 months from start to finish. *sigh*
My precious students from this year wonder why I sometimes have a far away look on my face. Little do they know that I am rearranging furniture in my new classroom. The one with white walls and bigger windows that I will move into next year. Anything to remove myself from the portable/paneled cave that I currently inhabit.
One of the beautiful things about being a teacher is what I like to call THE RESET BUTTON. Remember that lesson that went south on you? You get a redo next year. How about that book you thought the kids would love that they loathed? Pick another one to takes its place. You know that kid that always has to have the last word? Another teacher gets to educate him in the next grade. We get to reinvent ourselves every year if we so choose, and that is such a heady proposition. Many people never get to try again in their profession, but we get that every year! For me, it’s such a blessing because I mess up. A lot. However, I hope that I learn from my mistakes and strive to do a better job the next time around.
Next year I get to try again in a bigger classroom. With bigger windows. 🙂
