Tag Archives: new

First official day back

Leave a reply

I’m headed to our school board office this morning for our first admin meeting of the year. There are years when this day arrives and I sit in bewilderment wondering what happened to my summer? But this year is one of those years where I’ve felt like I’ve had a wonderful break and I’m ready for the new year.

My regular routine starts today. I’m not writing this at a random time of day, or squeezing my writing in right before bed (like last night). Rather, I’m up early, I’ve already meditated, and I’m getting on the treadmill as soon as I publish this. It feels good to be back to my routine.

The new year brings with it both excitement and trepidation. I always start the year with specific goals in mind, and I feel enthusiastic, yet apprehensive. The year always holds so much promise. New plans, new students, new and unexpected scenarios all lie ahead.

There is a lot of prep work to do, but no amount of prep makes you feel 100% prepared. Planning only gets you so far when you are dealing with so many people in different roles. You might be calm and ready, but others will be nervous and unpredictable. No matter how well planned you may be, unexpected things will happen.

Schools are places of growth and learning, and real learning doesn’t happen smoothly and with conformity. Things don’t always go as planned. Yet, that’s part of the excitement. The unknown, the unexpected, the surprises along the way, the connections you make, the solutions you work on, and the collaboration required, are all part of what makes this job exciting and unique.

It’s the first day back, and so a whole new adventure begins…

Starting a new school year

As a kid I didn’t enjoy the first days of the school year. I feared getting into a class without any of my small group of friends, and then even if we got in the same class, the seating plan would separate us. I worried about who my teachers would be and if I’d like them.

Once in class with all my updated supplies, I always found it hard to start writing in a new workbook.

Even after writing my name and the subject on the cover that first blank page was daunting. My first words written were not the start of a new adventure, but rather the destruction of something perfect… and the start of a lot of work ahead that I wasn’t very excited about.

Now as an adult, I get excited about the metaphorical ‘blank page’ that the new school year brings. The year ahead has no blemishes, only an open book to be written in. The empty pages hold so much promise. The adventure ahead is real, unknown, and unrealized.

The year holds potential, it has promise, and it sits before us, students and educators alike, waiting for us to seize it. There are some nerves, even a little apprehension, but the open book is there before us and it is exciting… we just have to get the first few words out of the way.