For most of my life, Labor Day has separated summer freedom and 10 months of being at school. As the days began to dawn later, often with more crispness, and end earlier, the inevitable approach of the schedule to which I must abide grew louder and louder until it was impossible to ignore.
School was starting and summer was over.
However, this year, and presumably each subsequent year of my life, will be different. Labor Day no longer holds the same power to divide the calendar between unscheduled and mandatory attendance.
My time is now my own.
After three decades of greeting a new school year with conference days and professional development of questionable pertinence, I was ever so happy to spend a lovely evening out at June Farms, rather than at home for the sake of being well rested to sit through a day’s worth of meetings in an auditorium.
If you’re not an educator or working in an adjacent capacity for a school district, you may not be aware of the rah-rah atmosphere of the beginning of a new school year, district meeting. In my experience, there’s generally a theme, along with some sort of audio visual presentation, an introduction of new faculty and staff members, and the public acknowledgement of milestone lengths of service for employees.
Sometimes we even are gifted pens, all the better to sign the various forms which require updating each year.
Through the years, I’ve heard about various initiatives designed to help educators produce students who are better prepared to take standardized tests be successful in academia. “Good to Great!,” being one of my personal favorites, followed by the more well known “No Child Left Behind.”
While these canned presentations may vary each year, what was always consistent was the message, provided by district administration, that we were “a family,” a sentiment that I embraced with sincere appreciation. After all, it does take a village, right?
This next related (ha!) thought, is for novice teachers…
We all know families can be created and defined in countless ways. I’m going to suggest that if you find yourself newly employed in a district, you cultivate relationships most frequently with your peers, rather than attempt to include administration. In fact, it might be best to consider central administration as more of a step family.*
Because, even though the mission may have a common intended goal, teachers are the ones who are working directly with students, they are the professionals who, generally speaking, are the experts in educating children.
Teachers accept the difficult task of delivering curriculum, which they likely had very little influence in selecting, to dozens of students each day. Developing relationships with fellow faculty members, support staff and paraprofessionals is a critical part of a teacher’s daily existence and ultimately, student success.
These are the people who often come to feel like family in a school, not representatives of central administration.
At least not in my experience.
So, as the school year begins, my advice to new teachers is to create and foster connections with those with whom you share students. Your building colleagues are who you will likely miss when your career comes to an end one day – not the folks who publicly declared you to be a family, yet failed to acknowledge your retirement after 22 years of service in the district with even an email.
On Tuesday, what is the first day of student attendance in many districts, I’ll be taking a quick trip down to NYC to see my youngest son. My former colleagues will be in my thoughts (and missed!) as they begin a new year, but I know who my family is and will happily jump on a train to spend the day with them.
Hope you have a great year!
*Not to say that step families cannot be supportive and involved, but think of admin as family members with whom you don’t share common dna. The relationship is simply not the same.
DelSo 