Writer's Block: School daze
Sep. 2nd, 2010 01:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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There have been only two Septembers of my life since I was four that I didn't head to school in one capacity or another: the two years I was on maternity leave with each of my daughters. Even then, the second mat leave included preschool for my older daughter and I was taking her to school and volunteering periodically.
On the one hand, I get significant anxiety at this time of year. I don't sleep well for the last couple weeks of August, and I rarely sleep much at all the night before school starts. I get tense. I know very well that the tone for the whole school year is set on the first day, and if it's bad, I also know what kind of hell I'm likely to go through.
On the other hand, a nicely laid-out classroom (or in this case, school library) full of books and materials and newly-sharpened pencils and a pristine white board and chart papers and and and. . . I love the promise of a new school year. I love happy faces looking at me, knowing that I make a key difference in their lives for the months they're mine. This year, I'll be teaching every student in the school, and I'll teach most of them for several years in this capacity. My job is to present the wonder of books and learning; to encourage them to try new things and show them my enthusiasm; to make the library the beating, living heart of the school. The kids who connect with me, who take advantage of the wealth of opportunities available because I organize, purchase, and teach them, will never be the same again. Their minds will expand, their horizons possibly too. It's a sacred trust.
Teaching, like the ministry, really like any helping profession, should be a calling. It should be something you do because you're passionate about it. There was more than one year when I didn't feel that, and did very much feel the lack of it, to the point where i questioned whether I belonged in teaching at all. I don't question it now. For all the stress, for all the stupidities and bureaucratic nightmares, for all the elements I disagree with and wish would disappear from my job, this is what I have to do.
There have been only two Septembers of my life since I was four that I didn't head to school in one capacity or another: the two years I was on maternity leave with each of my daughters. Even then, the second mat leave included preschool for my older daughter and I was taking her to school and volunteering periodically.
On the one hand, I get significant anxiety at this time of year. I don't sleep well for the last couple weeks of August, and I rarely sleep much at all the night before school starts. I get tense. I know very well that the tone for the whole school year is set on the first day, and if it's bad, I also know what kind of hell I'm likely to go through.
On the other hand, a nicely laid-out classroom (or in this case, school library) full of books and materials and newly-sharpened pencils and a pristine white board and chart papers and and and. . . I love the promise of a new school year. I love happy faces looking at me, knowing that I make a key difference in their lives for the months they're mine. This year, I'll be teaching every student in the school, and I'll teach most of them for several years in this capacity. My job is to present the wonder of books and learning; to encourage them to try new things and show them my enthusiasm; to make the library the beating, living heart of the school. The kids who connect with me, who take advantage of the wealth of opportunities available because I organize, purchase, and teach them, will never be the same again. Their minds will expand, their horizons possibly too. It's a sacred trust.
Teaching, like the ministry, really like any helping profession, should be a calling. It should be something you do because you're passionate about it. There was more than one year when I didn't feel that, and did very much feel the lack of it, to the point where i questioned whether I belonged in teaching at all. I don't question it now. For all the stress, for all the stupidities and bureaucratic nightmares, for all the elements I disagree with and wish would disappear from my job, this is what I have to do.
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Date: 2010-09-04 02:16 am (UTC)