For you non-parent non-teacher
types, tomorrow is just another Monday.
Perhaps you enjoyed a three-day weekend thanks to the New Year’s holiday
but otherwise it’s just another Sunday night.
You’re waking up from a nap, watching some football, maybe finishing up
some laundry…
For the rest of us, it is THE night
before school starts back. It’s the
first day of school all over again, this time without the excitement of that
first day, without the clean slates and shiny classrooms. Tomorrow there won’t be any adrenaline to push
us out of bed; there will only be the reality that we need to pack real lunches
and plan acceptable outfits. When we get
there, there will be no introductions or icebreakers; there will only be the
reminder that testing starts next week and we’ve got a lot to learn between now
and then. (So I know you missed your friends, but please, please be quiet and
listen…)
There are parents who cannot wait
to drop off in the car rider line in the morning and soak up the first peace
they’ve experienced since before the blessed holiday season. There are others who will be sad to let go of
slow mornings and lazy days with their little ones, and still others who have
no idea how they’re going to drag their kids out of bed since bedtime has been
completely disregarded for the last two weeks. (I imagine my husband is feeling
similarly about waking me up tomorrow.) And while I’m not part of the parenting
world, I imagine that most parents experience a mixture of all those feelings. (Don’t
worry…snow days will set in soon…)
There are also different types of
teachers. There are those who left their
classroom in perfect order with January’s lesson plans neatly typed out on
their desk (okay, maybe there are only one or two of those but I’m thinking
they may exist somewhere). There are
those of us who typed up our plans sometime last week so we could shake the
feeling of impending doom but now we can’t even remember what we decided to
teach tomorrow. And I’m sure there are
some of you who won’t even start those plans until later tonight, soaking up
every last minute of denial possible. (Cheers to you—I feel your pain!)
However, on the night before school
starts back, it’s not the parents or the other teachers I find myself thinking
about. Instead, it’s those twenty little
people who call me Mrs. Jones. I haven’t
seen them for two weeks and truth be told, I miss them. I may need to remind myself of this feeling by
9:00 am tomorrow when I’ve already been interrupted twenty times and repeated
myself twice that, but I’ve truly missed them.
I miss their smiles, I miss their ideas and funny comments, and I miss
the feeling I have when I’m in those four walls with them just doing our
thing.
I’m not
sure but I think maybe that’s how you know you’re doing what you’re supposed to
do… when you miss it when you aren’t doing it.
So if you’re a parent and you’re
sad tonight because you’re sending those kiddos back to school tomorrow, be
thankful for the chance to miss them.
Soak it up when they walk back through the door tomorrow afternoon. If you’re a fellow teacher and you’re
begrudging those lesson plans tonight, remind yourself what’s on that paper
isn’t what really matters. What does
matter is the twentyish kids somewhere tonight who couldn’t care less what’s in
your lesson plans. All they know is that
tomorrow they’ll be back in those four walls with you, doing their thing.
It’s our job to make it a place
they are excited to come back, so let’s be ready…not with the perfect lesson
plans or the right outfits, but with our smiles and in our hearts. That’s what
the night before school starts back is all about.
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