It's a New School Year: Confessions of Your Classroom Teacher
A new school year is upon us, next week at this time most students in Malden will be feeling high anxiety. We all remember that night before school started when we were students ourselves.
We spent our last few weeks of summer vacation preparing for school, there was the excitement of getting our new school supplies, going shopping for new clothes, new shoes and new sneakers. Our emotions were mixed. We felt a sense of sadness that summer was ending and we felt excitement to see our friends. Those emotions were coupled with some apprehension about meeting our new classmates, teachers, and beginning a new school year.
Well here is the truth, teachers feel that same apprehension and anxiety. We get nervous about setting up our classroom so it's just right for our students. We worry about getting to know our new students and their families. Our stomach is in knots and we wake up at night thinking about the upcoming school year, the challenges we will face reaching all of our student's academic learning styles, and creating lessons that will engage our students as well as reflect their new knowledge in standardized testing for which we are all accountable.
There is something bigger than all this though. These students who walk through our door on that first day of school are our students and they are our kids. We will be connected to these individuals for the rest of our lives because they spent time in our classroom.
During an academic school year, students and teachers spend hundreds of hours together. We share our students' successes, failures, joys, and their sorrows.
So there it is, students and teachers share the same anticipation, anxiety, and excitement as a new school year approaches. We're connected by these shared emotions. We know from experience that once that bell rings on that first day, the school year will be in motion and much of our anxiety and apprehension will subside as we become submerged in teaching, learning and getting to know each other.
School year 2013-2014, ready or not, here we come.
Kathleen Sullivan
