Ah, summer! Home again, home again, bloggety blog!
Forget all the aforementioned emotions about the end of the school year...I'm free!!!
Well, except for the laundry, and the doubled amount of trips to the grocery store to feed my overly ravenous offspring three, count 'em, three meals a day. Oh- and the whole Mom's Taxi service business, it never seems to slow. I have spent the majority of the days being perfectly content with actually getting the laundry threat down from security level red to a modest yellow. I have delighted in de-junking drawers, cabinets and consoles. I have reveled in the reverie of purging the personal things that are superfluous. The beds are made and countertops visible. How much happier I feel when I have time to get things in their proper places! To open a closet door without fear of possible concussion. This euphoria is also been afforded to me at a price of sending my pre-teen angst filled daughter to a week long theater camp. (While I love my children with all my being, peaceful coexistence is absent when the two are together!). Thus leaving my seven year old son to bemylittlecompanion as the summer commences. He's content with gunning down birds with his pellet gun or watching movies, playing games, building forts and so forth. We are in our clean cocoon of conditioned air. It is a nice "change" of pace...
It also gives me time to reflect on the school/work year passed and the one upcoming. There is constant buzzing in a small town about changes in staffing, administration, and salary of ones school district. Without the daily meeting of other faculty members there is trepidation about possible changes that looms ( like an overflowing laundry basket or so-full-it won't -open junk drawer.) And while I try not to let my own anxieties creep into my consciousness; I'd be lying if I said they didn't .
Why are we as adults so apprehensive about change? Why, the sheer look of delight of my students upon hearing they are getting new a new seating arrangement closely resembles being told they are about to watch a Li'l Wayne video and eat ice cream! Is it because we fear the unknown? That's a valid explanation. But I believe there is more. We fear not only the possibilities, for our mind hasn't quite been able to master filtering the infinitesimal options of outcomes, but I see that it's not unlike an animal's flight or fight response. We fear how changes will directly affect our lives and how we will reciprocate; our defenses are up! And we may have to (insert deep dramaatic inhalation) adapt. When we do, in August, have to spread our newly formed wings and ditch the cocoon (which by now will be in a state of disarray again anyway), we wonder what we will face "out there". Will we be forced to change the way things have always been done, be them successful or not? Will the waywe like to fly be threatened? Let's not leave out the fear of being socially isolated as a result of new people and policies on a campus. Add to that what is inevitably in our human condition (unlike the animal world inhabitants) to obsess over how changes will impact us individuals. While of course, we SHOULD, as ed-u-cat-ors ( snobby British accent yet again), shift our focus away from our insecurities and try to see outside of our cocoons; to ponder how the changes just might positively affect the whole system. (Insert grossly understated generalization here: It is WAY easier said than done.)
AND, if the only thing constant is indeed change, why, the very things over which we fret will be fleeting for sure! Think about the hard work that must be endured to rearrange ones bedroom. You worry you will hate the layout once you (after nearly dislodging a back disc and sacrificing a toenail) finally get the bed to the opposite wall and may not have the physical wherewithal to move it back even if you can't close the door for the headboard being in the way. ( Hmm, never ever happened to me before, I swear.) But it's worth the effort to see if you might like a new layout. And guess what? In the process of the change you've uncovered the long forgotten end- of -season, got 'em for nearly free, knee high boots in a dust covered box! You are suddenly aware of something you maybe didn't even know your life was lacking. Perhaps the fervor to try new things or roles in your life? And if you truly detest the change(s), if nothing else it will maybe make you appreciate allthe more, your previous situation, cocoon, layout what have you, that you may have taken for granted. We may not like the change itself, but the power of perspective is ultimately self initiated and directed. Sigh.
The last week in July always seems to prompt those not in the public school realm to ask, with a insidious smirk and drippy sarcasm if I am ready to go back. (About the same time as the onset of first day of school nightmares involving a class full of rowdy kids and me with little clothing on-eek!) When the truth is I'm not really going back. Things will be different: the students assuredly will have changed, and while I may vacillate between the zebra or cheetah border on my calendar board, or what songs to make the kids stand up and sing to help them learn their figurative language, it will, regardless, be a new school year. (Something I begin to anticipate mid-April!). The way in which I enter and view my classroom will not be identical to the year previous, or the day before, for that matter. And there will be some things I will continue do in a ritualistic nature, as ceatures of habit we , no doubt, all are. No matter who the boss may be, I am the person who has beenentrusted with teaching reading to my community's sixth graders. No matter who sits in a central office, I must direct myself to adjust and adapt to the needs of those kids. Keep my focus on trying to create a classroom that could be a fun cocoon for them to come and hopefully learn. And if I need to change, or someone feels the need to displace me, I pray I will have the self introspection to successfully do so (without a full blown hissy fit- maybe just a stomp and late night ice cream binge).
I've been told the Bible has the words "Do not fear" cited 365 times, that means I can double up on a few days of my 187.
Crikey, I just heard the dryer buzz.
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