Back to school arrived last week, for me.
The first week back, after summer vacation, is always a difficult week at work for me, for a few reasons.
One is that summer is over (it really does not matter what the weather is, or what the calendar says about the end of summer being a month later, summer ends when school begins, period).
Secondly I work in a school … with students, and before Labor Day weekend, there are no students at school. Work without students is … boring!
Another reason is that, in my line of work, every year can mean a completely new assignment, with completely different students, in completely different classes and grades, working with completely different teachers. Everything, and I mean everything that I was confident in just two months ago is gone, and is replaced by something new.
And, finally, people ask how I feel about being back, and well, considering the above mentioned reasons for the first week being difficult, that is an answer that I really do not want to give … because it makes me sound terribly negative, and feel terribly depressed.
Once I get to work, on this first day back, I am (along with my colleges) given our schedules, with the reminder that we should not write down anything, except in pencil (things can still change for the first couple of weeks of school). It is then that full panic mode begins.
For the past few years when I receive that initial schedule for the year, I really start to feel panicky because I feel as though I am so inadequate to do the job that has been handed to me. And then, from that moment until the first day of school, I get increasingly panicked.
I often consider resigning, saying no, running away. Anything that will allow me to put distance between my job assignment and me. At this point, I am convinced those little butterflies in my stomach have changed into buzzards, and they have come home to roost inside of my innards.
As I was driving to school the final day of the week I was drawn in by the lyrics of a song that was playing on the radio …
Still your mercy remains
And should I stumble again
Still I’m caught in your grace”
my purpose remains
The art of losing myself
in bringing you praise”
Consume me from the inside out Lord
Let justice and praise, become my embrace
To love You from the inside out”
Never ending, Your glory goes beyond all fame
And the cry of my heart is to bring You praise
From the inside out, O my soul cries out.”
As I contemplate all that this day means, I also think back … w a y back … to when I was school student. I remember the new clothes (brand new fall/winter sweaters when the temperatures are often still reflecting the summer season), the new shoes (which always came home not so white, and feet requiring bandages for the new shoe blisters), the crisp clean lined Hilroy notebooks, the line-up at the pencil sharpener (because we all had new pencils), and the revelation of who would be our classroom teacher for the school year.
Having now been back to work, in a school, for three days, I am confident of one thing … school is not school without the students!
itsawonderfilledlife 