And Still We Rise

The new school year is upon us.  This is when the life of a tenth grade English teacher gets REALLY exciting.  :)

The best part of going back to school for me is getting to hole myself up in my classroom for a couple of days doing nothing but decorating, organizing, and planning.  It's like vocational heaven!

We had the dreaded badge/yearbook pictures this morning.  And let's not kid ourselves, they're every BIT as bad as we remember yearbook pictures being in high school.  It's a veritable cattle call of sit downs, tilt your heads, look up at me, snap snaps.  NEXT.  But luckily, I had an aspiring photographer my first year of teaching who now works for the company who takes our pictures.  She so kindly did a few extra snap-snaps for me and gave me a REALLY good yearbook picture.  Take note, teachers.  If you don't already have enough motivation to be nice to your kids, this reason alone should be enough.  You never know when they'll come back and have the power to exact horrible revenge in the form of taking an awkward picture of your face that will be archived for all to see for hundreds of years to come!

Anywho, I had a nice encounter with our band director this morning who even after four years at this school, I'd still yet to actually meet.  He's a very soft spoken and kind older gentleman.  He stopped me on the sidewalk outside to introduce himself, and we chatted about students we have in common.  And just as we parted, he called after me, "Mrs. Cochran, have a great year AND DON'T LET ANYBODY STEAL YOUR JOY!!"  And that tickled me pink!  I said, "You got it, Mr. Pruitt!"

And that's so true.  In this school environment, where our students are faced with so many challenges socially, economically, and academically, it can be really easy to get burned out-- and quickly.  We have to remember why we chose this profession and, more specifically, this student population for our careers.  I was reminded of this yesterday when as a faculty we got to watch this amazing graduation speech.  If you're a teacher, you WILL cry.  I'm just warning you.



It's gonna be a great year!