I think I’ve fallen in love again. All the signs are there. I am obsessing. I am worrying. I find myself distracted easily. And I haven’t just fallen in love with one person. Oh, no. That would be far too easy. I have fallen in love with almost one hundred kids. Yes, for the twenty-somethingth time, I have fallen in love with my classes.
It may sound trite and silly, but it is true. As I spend the first long weekend away from my classes, I find I am thinking about them. More often than not, I am not thinking of them as a class, it is as specific individuals. I am reminded of them as I walk through my weekend. As I catch up on grading, I am upset with them, worried about them, or eager to talk to them. I debate whether I need to email them and remind them that we’ll be in the computer lab for the first time on Tuesday.
It is one of the most wonderful things about being a teacher: the cycle of the year. Yes, I know I am in the crush phase right now. I have just met these students and we are newly in love. The honeymoon will end just before Halloween. How timely. But for right now, we are still new to each other, still exploring who were are together.
I am trying to tailor the curriculum to fit my kids as precisely as possible. With each assignment, class session, discussion and activity, I am learning what they can do, who they are and what they seem to need. I am reading IEPs, talking to parents, and having conferences. The more I learn about them, the more eager I am to learn with them.
Yes, some of them are challenging. Yes, some of them are tough. Not only I am undaunted, but their prickles compels me even more to reach out and connect with them – especially now. The first few weeks of class are formative. One of the beautiful things about the new year is that even my most rigid and difficult students still have wiggle room at this time of year. They are willing to come to the relationship anew and try again. That is what the cycle is all about.
Unlike a day-to-day business, students and teachers in school move through a spiral path that promises growth, change and release. We love our breaks but we also know that, as we study together, we are changing and moving in a positive direction.
As optimistic as that may sound, I know I have students who dread coming to school. I know that many carry enormous baggage with them. I worry about them. I look for them and work on ways to support them. I am not all knowing, and they are not all sharing, so I often wonder and wait. And I am always hopeful that my optimistic enthusiasm will infect them and that can help, if only just a little.
The cycle will move forward. We will go from being shiny new friends into a more everyday routine. Yet, I believe that the way we form our relationship will have a profound effect on the routine into which we settle. The way I, as teacher, respond to these first few weeks will shape the course of our year together and our relationship beyond that.
In college, I remember reading excepts from a book called, Contact: The First Four Minutes. The thesis of this book was that, in the first four minutes when people meet, much of the future of their relationship is determined. While four minutes may be a short amount of time, I think a similar thing can be said for classrooms.
So despite the end of summer and the return to the work routine, I am eager to get back to the kids with whom I have newly fallen in love. I know it won’t last. It will turn into something far better and more important. That is why I do it, again and again and again and again.
