Let the school year begin...

I don't know about you, but January is never the beginning of the year for me.  It's always been in August, because that's when a new school year starts.  When you're a student, you begin a new grade and you get a chance to start over again, with new goals and possibilities.  This is especially when you move from one school to another.  Freshmen in high school have a chance to redefine the identity they created for themselves as middle schoolers, just as college freshmen can do the same.  For them, moving out of their childhood home makes this transition even more dramatic.

As a teacher, I always start my new year with goals.  One of them is ALWAYS the same:  I WILL be more organized!  I plan, I clean out my classroom in the summer, reorganize my storage areas, discard things I haven't used, and begin the year with a fresh outlook.  I create and practice new ways of keeping organized.  By October or November I discover which of these new methods work and which don't.  By about March, I'm lucky to see out from underneath all the piles on my desk, and my cabinets have become a dumping ground for what I need to get off of my desk NOW.  When May comes, I look at my cabinets and start it all over again.

Generally I also have goals related to new responsibilities and procedures at my school.  This year we are pushing a huge technology initiative which not only involves new computers for teachers but also new requirements as to using technology.  It is a bit overwhelming for all of us in my building, even those of us who are comfortable experimenting with and using technology in the classroom.  We have an entirely new gradebook and attendance system that we need to learn about and use.  Parental communication has also become part of our new gradebook and attendance system, specifically that we are to have a daily online log of our classroom lesson plans and homework.  Parents have the ability not only to access their child's grades but they also can look for homework and lessons.  For me it is not the planning that is "new", but getting used to using the new system.   My goal for this is to be as efficient as possible with the new system, to be patient with myself and my colleagues about it, and to try and be an encouragement and resource to everyone who is feeling overwhelmed.

There are other "resolutions" I develop for each new school year.  Most of them are related to the failures or successes I had the previous year.  All of them are usually quite personal, and relate to how I interacted with  my students and their families.  Some of them have to do with my relationships with my colleagues.

So there, January...August is the real "new year".  It just doesn't start with a party and a countdown.  Just a classroom and school full of new faces.