Back in the Salad Again

My school has a distinctive smell. I know the smell. It is the “school without kids in it yet” scent. It is the anticipation smell. It is the smell of possibility. I love going to school in the weeks before students arrive. I photocopy and decorate my classrooms. I get all the things I have packed away and pull them out again.

There are sad moments as well, as I realize that I won’t have last year’s groups. I miss them. I am delighted when familiar faces appear in the halls, and when new faces become familiar.

Getting ready to go back to school may be one of the most difficult transitions of the year. But transitions are one of the things that make being a teacher so joyful. Teaching is about working with people over time. Teaching is about change and embraces the transitions. We go. We go back. And each time we go back, we are all in a different place. Each time I enter my classroom, there are different children. Even day-to-day, my students grow, change, and develop. It is a beautiful and wonderful process.

It has been a good summer, and I have loved almost every minute of it. I am almost ready to return, and I am getting myself there. Recently, I got a glimpse of my class lists. Many of the kids I know. Many I know somewhat. Most I don’t know at all. I am excited to get to know them well. I am eager to learn with them.

New students and new things to study! I have rarely taught the same course for more than a few years in a row. It doesn’t matter much, because my lessons are never the same. In order to keep up with the kids, the lessons must change, too. Each summer I fuss with my curriculum. This summer, I gave one of my classes quite an overhaul. It is very different than it was last year. While there are texts I have taught for many years, they turn out very differently with each group of students. When I meet a class, I learn about them as individuals and a group. Even different sections of the same course end up with different lessons. They must! I need to tailor the course to the kids.

A few years ago, I was given a Freshman English class that was all male. No girls. I made a few adjustments in the texts (For example, I had been teaching A Midsummer’s Nights Dream; I went back to Romeo and Juliet), and then many adaptations to activities and lesson structures. The group needed more small group work, more physical movement, and this group loved reading aloud and enacting literature. So that’s what we did.

And once I get to know the kids, I can help them grow in new directions. Neither their strengths nor their struggles should be their prisons. I try to help students understand their current skill level and then teach them how to improve (or develop) those skills.

It is wonderful to reconnect with my colleagues. I have seen a few of them over the summer at workshops and meetings as well as at social events. Being away from each other for a little while lets me see them anew. There are new things to share: an engagement, a pregnancy, a new degree, a new home, and, of course, a new school year.

It is all thrown together: new kids, new tales, old colleagues with new news, updated curriculum, and all the energy and activity of the start of school. To twist the old Roy Rogers song, “I’m back in the salad again,” – and delighted to be there!