Let Summer Begin

Here in the Pacific Northwest people like to say that summer weather does not officially begin until July 5. In recent years this hasn't been exactly true, but this year "June-uary" reared its head and there were many days where it didn't feel warm enough to let Esmerelda wander around in the backyard.

Aside from the sunshine of yesterday afternoon and the promise of sunny weather today, I also accepted a fourth grade position last week. Knowing where I have landed for the coming school year has enabled my thoughts to shift into summer mode. I can't plan for the coming year quite as I normally would, given that we are still in the middle of a pandemic and all, but I know the building, I know most of the other teachers, and I know my principal. 

I'm going back to the school where I worked while my husband and I became licensed foster parents and took in a sibling set we thought we were going to adopt. I left the school to stay home, but as the foster placement fell apart, I returned to teaching. Ironically, I subbed for a month in the classroom I had just vacated because the person who was hired to replace me left just as the school went on Christmas break. The principal asked me to come back to finish the year, and I probably could have just returned to the position with an understanding of continuing for years to come, but I declined because we were still thinking we were going to adopt one of the siblings. By the time that fell apart, my fifth grade position was no longer on the table, and I found a long term sub position in middle school English Language Arts. 

Although I have spent the last two and a half school years teaching middle school humanities classes (6-8th grade ELA and 8th grade history), I did get my start in teaching with four years in third grade followed by eleven years in fifth grade. Fourth grade is the only grade 3-8 I haven't taught, but 15 of my 17 years in a classroom have been in the two grades adjacent to it. It's a little poetic justice that I'm going back down the grade levels to teach it now. But it will be a shift in mindset from the older students I have been teaching recently. 

Thinking about current events is my biggest mental hurdle. What is an appropriate level of depth for some nine and ten year-olds is too much (or not enough) for others.  Throw in the possibility of remote learning due to the pandemic, and there are topics that just seem like a bad idea to dive into when you are not in person to be able to gauge student reaction in real time in order to adjust or direct the flow of the discussion.  

I'm also only guaranteed this position for one year. The school has reduced class sizes in order to maintain the six feet of physical distance currently required between students. Throw in the inability to have shared resources among students, and I think most of the boxes from my previous classroom are just going to have to stay home. And, I could very well find myself in the thick of a job hunt again next spring. That's a depressing thought, so I'm doing my best to push it away, and enjoy hanging out in my yard when the weather's nice.