First Day of School Eve

Tomorrow is the first day of school. I have spent this week in meetings and activities with my fellow school employees, and trying to find time to finish setting up my classroom around these. This is the first time I have ever had my before school teacher meetings the same week as the first day of school. Meetings ran Monday-Wednesday from 8:00-3:00 and school starts tomorrow. One of the new teachers in my building told me this morning that my classroom looked "Pinterest ready." That feels like a pretty high compliment, so I guess I have nothing to worry about as far as having the space ready for kids to arrive tomorrow morning.

Blurring the nametags messed up overall look,
but you get the idea.

My head is having a hard time wrapping around the fact that tomorrow is the first day of school. But I think that's true every year. I'm too exhausted to know for sure right now... I had a back to school dream last night that combined teachers, students, and families from all three of the schools I have worked in over the course of my career. We were meeting to discuss a student of concern from my current building, and I had to drive from one building to another with a teacher from my previous building, only to meet with the new science teacher at my first building, who was actually one of my first third graders ever. When I woke up and started analyzing it, I realized my first third graders would be about 24 now, and therefore, one of them really could be a new science teacher at a school this year. It was fun to think about specific students, teachers, and families from each of my buildings when I woke up this morning. Given the content of my two back to school dreams, I have to say I can't find evidence in my life that I am worried or anxious about the new school year; I'm just processing it. Maybe I'll change my mind by tomorrow morning, but somehow I don't think that's likely.

There was a bit of shakeup in my building this week. On Monday we suddenly found ourselves in need of a new middle school teacher. With the two new teachers and IB PYP coordinator hired in June, that brings the total of new people in the building to four. For a staff of our size (just over 20 teachers), that's pretty significant.

Thankfully, even our meetings can be great fun. As an IB candidate school we have a lot to learn about this curriculum framework. One of the first things to learn is the learner profile, made up of ten attributes: Inquirer, Thinker, Reflective, Open-Minded, Risk-Taker, Communicator, Caring, Principled, Balanced, and Knowledgeable. Rather than reading about them, or being lectured to about them, we were teamed up and sent on a photo safari around the school to find places where these attributes are already in action around our building. Even after two IB workshops, this activity helped me to understand and cement the attributes into my brain.

Don't we look inquiring?

And when my principal schedules team building time, he knows what he is doing. At my previous schools we always went off campus during our in-service meetings for a "faculty retreat." It always included lots of prayer and touchy feely conversations. Although I know it was meant to increase morale and a sense of team spirit, it never quite hit its target goals for me. I'm not saying it wasn't valuable time, but it pales in comparison to what I've experienced in my current building. My first year we had a whirly ball tournament and last year we went to a cooking class at Hot Stove Society and prepared our lunch under the tutelage of actual chefs. This year we went on a scavenger hunt put on by the Electric Boat Company. One of the things I like best about these events, is the fact that the parish staff is always included in them. My current building is the first one where I have felt that that the school and parish staffs know each other well enough to really and truly work together. The other "best part" is that the activities is the fun that fosters genuine conversation, rather than the forced conversation that came from responding to prompts given to us at my previous retreats. In my current building, we play together in a structured activity, and learn much more about each other as a result.

Now this is team building!

Besides trying to figure out how to incorporate this lesson that I really learned today (after only my third time experiencing it... third time's the charm, right?) into my classroom culture this year, I hope to get a restful night's sleep that only includes feel good back to school dreams. As tired as I am, I am truly grateful that my first "week" of school is a day and a half, followed by a three day weekend.