Among the Trees: Back to School

 School starts today.  It’s the start of my 22nd year at my school; my 12th in the Middle School.  I’m teaching my 8th grade Civics & Citizenship class for a  4th year.  Lessons are ready, assignments are copied and loaded to the digital platform.  I’ve made adjustments to the class that I am ready to try. 

Clothes for the week are picked out and ironed.  Actual shoes will be worn.  Folders have been created, notebooks and stickers are neatly stacked.  I’m ready. 

If I have any anxiety about the year - and I do - it’s about my health.  Since late August, my wonky, arthritic hip has been on strike.  It’s pained me on and off for the last two years but this round is the worst yet.  I cannot get through the day without an embarrassing amount of ibuprofen.  Sleeping at night has become distinctly uncomfortable, so much so that I rest but don’t really sleep, as I can’t lie down without pain.  So I rest sitting up, which is not especially restful.  I have an appointment with an orthopedic doctor later this month but I am not hopeful that actual relief will be forthcoming.  And so I wait while my fears run amok. 

My greatest anxiety is about the threat to my independence this problem presents.  Just getting up and walking around is uncomfortable and though I keep at it, there are times when the discomfort is excruciating.  At minimum, I need relief from the pain.  At maximum, I’d like to be able to trust my hip to see me through whatever it is I wish to do.  Right now, I am confined to walks in safe places.  My step count is up because I cannot sit for more than 20 minutes without discomfort when I do stand and walk.  So I set a timer and keep moving.  

I am hopeful that things can be made better.  But I am also very, very afraid.  It’s a strange combination, hope and fear.  But it’s where I am at today, as the school year is underway.  

Thoughts on Back to School

I rolled into Summer 2023 with a great need for some peaceful days and the high hopes that would happen.  More than mid-way through August, and with my eye on the start of a new school year, I’m able to reflect on the last few month with a full heart.  

Miserably unhappy right hip not withstanding, this has been one of the nicest summers I can remember.  The weather was terrific for much of June and even when the heat arrived, it was not unbearable in New Jersey.  I spent countless hours outside on the back deck or the front porch, relaxed and glad to turn my face to the sunshine.  

But the real star of this summer has been its stark difference to the anxieties and worries of last summer.  I am incredibly grateful for that and though it will be some time before I take such ease for granted, it was nice to have it.  JT worked hard and found some measure of peace.  I found pleasure in my own company and took the time to reach out to friends for companionship when I needed it.  

Whereas last September I was glad to start school because it meant a break from the tension at home, this year finds me approaching the start of the year with genuine excitement for what the school year will bring, not just relief.  It’s nice to value back-to-school for its own prospects.  

My classes are ready to go.  I love prepping a new class but there is a certain amount of tension involved in the process, as so many new lessons means nothing familiar to fall back upon. This year is my fourth year of teaching Civics & Citizenship to 8th graders and I’ve made some adjustments that I am excited roll out.  At this point, the class is still a new-enough prep that I am pleased by its newness.  At the same time, I’ve done it enough that I have a sense of what works well and what needs fine-tuning.  

But, honestly, most of my ease as I approach the Fall is in the fact that my boy is finding his way.  He is excited about the school he will teach and coach at this year.  He remains at home but for both of us it’s a place of rest and respite, no longer layered with the prospect of minefields.  As Fall approaches both of us look to the new season with excitement at the prospects it offers.  That’s happy!

September Front Porch

This is the last full month that outdoor porch sitting will be an option on a daily basis.  I am determined to make the most of it.  Happy green plants surround my tiny New England village.

The flag is a cheerful sunflower.

I come home tired most days in the first month of school and this porch is a welcome place to arrive.  That’s happy!

School, Actual School

After nearly two weeks of meetings, actual classrooms full of real-life students arrive in the building today.  My classroom is organized; lessons are set; my first-day-school skirt and blouse are steamed and at-the-ready.

Like any start of school, there is the expectation of the unknown.  The pandemic makes this an even greater concern.  More than 80% of my students eligible to be vaccinated have had their jab.  All of the faculty and staff are vaccinated.  For now, we are not teaching hybrid and I am grateful for the chance to get to know my students before we navigate whatever madness Covid-19 brings. 

This is my 20th year teaching at my school, a landmark of sorts, and my greatest hope is for a year of healthy in-person learning.  That seems like a modest goal but if I have learned anything in the past two years of teaching, it’s that the seemingly modest goals are the most important of all.  

Giddy up, y’all.  Here we go…

Pandemic School: Year 3

Though it seems insane to write it down, this the third year I will teach school while a pandemic rages on.  The first year, 2019-2020, began as a typical school year and then shifted homeward in the last third of the year, while we all tried to flatten the curve (remember that?).     

The close of that year was filled with volumes of uncertainty about what was to come for the following year. , so much so that it seems to me that uncertainty was the theme of the 2020-2021 school year.  I joked often that it was year that featured a lot of planning of things that we would subsequently cancel.  There is a painful truth to that.  As the school year unfolded,  I taught most of it in a hybrid model, punctuated at times by being fully remote and then a close to the year that brought most of our students on campus in the month of May.  That last month felt as close to normal as anything has been since March of 2020, albeit a normal with everyone in  masks and a few students still fully remote.     

We plan for 2021-2022 to be a year of students fully on campus.  When planning for September began in earnest in in late March 2021, vaccines were briskly rolling out and every teacher and most children over 12 of my acquaintance were eager to get one, that seemed like a reasonable assumption.  Now, with the start of classes just a few days away, and the Delta variant in full command in the U.S., I worry that our plans are overly optimistic.  Even with more than 80% of those over age 12 and nearly 100% of the faculty and staff vaccinated, I’d feel better with a school-wide vaccine mandate to go with our mask mandate.  Instead, I’ll have confidence in our community, a confidence that is rooted in knowledge of the community as much as it is hope.    

I no longer believe in anything like “normal."  In fact, I think a large measure of our national divide is driven by a set of people who believed in a “normal” that privileged them at the cost of others.  I have come to see normal as a problem.  I think we need to be realistic about how we live our lives in this challenge.  But lives can be lived and we must do so.  Here's to the hope that always attends the start of a school year.  Here's also to the values of a school community that looks after one another.  In these two things I hope we find the strength to make our way forward.

Old Man Tree: September 1

I never longed for the start of Summer as much I longed for Summer this year.  The hybrid school year took its toll and when June hovered into sight I was so glad for the prospect of time off.  I took advantage of that time and the unscheduled days of the last few months has been lovely. 

Though the last school year ended on a positive note - I began to believe we might not have to wear masks forever - the rise of the Delta variant over the summer has put those hopes to rest.  New Jersey is a high vax state and we’ll all be wearing a mask at school.  I’m checking the over 12 vaccination rate in my region and my school with a slight obsessiveness (school is over 80%, so that’s hopeful) and reading every study I can find about ventilation.  In short, the pandemic and its attendant anxiety are still very much with me as the start of school is very much on the horizon.

That makes Old Man Tree, this backyard, and time outside more important than ever.  As the busy days ramp up, I am grateful for time here, with a tree that is old enough that it was here for post-WWI influenza pandemic and will surely see us through this uncertainty as well.

The Little School That Could

School starts today.  To say that I am nervous, excited, worried, hopeful…….all of that is an epic understatement.  But children belong in school, a place separate from home in the company of their friends and led by adults who care deeply.  My school is this place and today, nearly 6 months after we shut the doors and went to remote learning, we are able to have students in school again.

We have masks and open windows, social distancing, and carefully marked hallways.  Daily we are at half capacity with 50% of our students learning remote and the other half on campus for alternating weeks.  The amount of preparation put into this day is staggering.  

But with all of my heart and soul, I am ready for this.

Good Morning Indeed

We had meetings all of last week and this week will feature some more meetings and then, on Thursday and Friday, actual school - in person and with students.  At this point, 6 months after I last taught students in person, the very idea of in-person school feels special.

For grades 6-12, my school is using a hybrid model, with half of the students present for in-person in class each week and the other half learning remote.  Each week, we’ll swap out the group on campus.  In class together will look radically different - with masks and socially distant seating. plexiglass shields and rules about hand-washing and hallway walking and a zillion other differences.  It could seem daunting but for the fact that I am so glad that we will be able to teach and learn together in person.  I know that most teachers and students won’t have this benefit and I am grateful that my students will.

I don’t know how long this method of school will last. I’ve never taught hybrid before and I expect it will be exhausting.  I’m still sorting out what assessments look like in this teaching model.  The list of uncertainties goes on and on and on.

But, after months and months of anxious planning, we have arrived at this day.  I am so very glad that we’re here.

September 5

There have been moments in my life when I have known things with certainty.  These moments are a wave of realization that always feels sudden but despite that they are reliable and have never been wrong.  When I left California for graduate school in Tennessee, driving East with my dad on a lonely strip of I-40 between Oklahoma City and Little Rock, Arkansas, I suddenly knew that I would never be back to California for good.  I felt the same way about Tennessee, a place I loved dearly.  Sitting on a rainy runway in Memphis waiting to fly to Nebraska, where I had made a home - temporary, as it turned out - I suddenly knew that I would not live in Tennessee again.  In Nebraska, when I got pregnant, I knew that it was the cells of little boy that I carried within me.  There was a horrifying moment in May of 2006 when I knew that my family of three was going to be broken beyond repair and that my little boy and I would be required to built a new family of two.  Many years later, when that little boy was a young man of 16 and we first visited the campus of Springfield College, I knew that campus would be the place he would attend college.

When the feeling of certainty fills me, I recognize and honor that truth, even if it’s a hard or painful truth to absorb.  In that moment, it simply is, and I believe it.

I think of these powerful moments now as we live in the clouded vortex of uncertainty that is life in a pandemic.  I search my mind for the power to know what the future will hold.  For hours, I sometimes wrack my brain looking for moments of seeming-certainty that blew up into an unexpected outcome.  Oddly, they almost always surround politics: the elections of 1984; of 2000; of 2016.  Now, in hindsight, I am not sure if it was certainty or hope that I felt on the eve of those elections.  I feel certain of Donald Trump’s defeat in November 2020 and I fear it is the triumph of hope over instinct that causes me to feel this way.

One of the hardest parts of life in 2020 has been the terribly certain uncertainty of it all.  I don’t just mean those powerful moments of certainty about my life that I have sometimes felt; those are rare and don't come along very often.  I mean any kind of certainty at all.  I feel like my last day of certainty was March 13, when we took an unexpected day off from classes.  I felt a certainty on that day that the rest of the school year would be remote.  Though school was not in session on that unseasonably warm and beautiful Friday, I came to work and stayed late into the afternoon, scanning my lessons into digital format so that I could teach from home through the end of the school year. 

Yesterday morning, I thought of that Friday the 13th as I drove to school at 7 am for New Student Day, a tradition at my school that I have participated in for each year that I have been here.  It was a moment of certainty —— I knew what to do because I had been through those motions so many times.  To be sure, it was a different New Student Day than I have ever experienced - masked, socially distant, with an obligation to take the children’s temperature before they could join the activities.  But in other ways, in the nervous smiles of new students, in the eager questions from their parents, the day was certainly familiar.  In 2020, such a sense of familiar certainty is welcome, so very welcome.

Some Wisdom in the Uncertainty

Tomorrow, our back to school 2020 meetings will begin.  We’ll be masked and socially distanced, sitting outside in tents, and sometimes meeting by Zoom from our individual classrooms and offices.  But the teachers, administrators, and staff will finally be back together on campus, finalizing the plans for the coming school year, plans that we began making last April.

It’s strange - and scary - to contemplate in these uncertain times.  I am a great fan of planning; a talent that is my certain sweet-spot when life gets difficult.  But a talent for planning is of limited use when uncertainty looms so large.  Though August 31 and then the September start of school have been on my calendar since before the pandemic came to New Jersey, the days still seem like hazy, like a familiar dream that I cannot quite make sense of.  

JT reminds me that there is “nothing to do but to do it” and so that is my plan for tomorrow; for every day, really, until the last page of this chapter of pandemic history has been written.

Close of the First Week

The first week of school is always a whirlwind of busy halls and energetic students; exciting competing with anxiety to determine who will rule the day.  At my school, the faculty are nearly as excited and that makes for happy and hopeful hallways.  A new school year always feels fresh and full of promise and in this way, I always welcome its arrival.  I am ready for something new.

Right on schedule, Mother Nature brought signs of Fall change.  On Monday, I sat on the back deck and when I looked up at the sky, I saw that old man tree has already begun to change his leaf colors.

Seasonal change is always pretty in my corner of New Jersey and this year is no exception.  Changing colors will help me to embrace the transition to school (and the need to wear shoes!).  Classes started on Tuesday; last night was Back to School Night, and today is Friday.  Sweet, blissful Friday.  That the weekend will be followed by more school is good news.  We’re back and that’s happy!

Back to School 2019

For the last three nights, I’ve dreamt either that I was late to the first day of school or that I got to school only to that it was the first day but I had no plans for the classes I teach.  Last night, I had both dreams.  That can only mean one thing.

My school bag was packed up last night.  This morning, I’m wearing shoes and made an extra effort by putting on mascara and eyeliner.

That can only mean one thing: school is back in session.

I’ll welcome familiar and new middle schoolers this morning.  This year’s 7th grade will get their assigned seat and their first homework assignment.  There are familiar lessons and newly designed lessons on the horizon for them; I’m excited to think and talk about history with them. Even after all these years of teaching, the first day still feels like an exciting fresh start.  That's happy!

Here we go…….

Seasonal Change

Though classes won’t begin until next week, back-to-school meetings have started this week.  My regular school schedule has begun, and I wake up at 5:30 in the morning, to give me the quiet morning time I crave in advance of long and busy days.

All summer long. I’ve spent time on the front porch with my book and several cups of coffee to ease me into the day.  This week’s early wake-ups have found me walking downstairs just before 6 am, with the dawn just peaking over the edge of the eastern sky but to yet break the inky darkness of my northern-facing front porch.  It’s been cool on these mornings and I grab a sweater to keep me company as I read.  More than anything else, these dark mornings show me that summer is fading away.

Next week, I’ll check my e-mail in the darkness, still on the porch to embrace the last of the summer season, but aware of the need to make the most of my morning quiet.  The darkness, the work e-mail, and the chill in the air will all combine to remind me that the relaxed pace of summer has faded and been replaced by busy school days.  I like those days, packed with the energy and excitement of middle schoolers eager to learn, but it’s still hard to say goodbye to the ease of the summer.  

Time will pass.  Pumpkins and fall mums will replace the abundant flowers of the summer.  Sweaters will be necessary and my toes will adjust to life inside of shoes.  I’ll look forward to Halloween and then Thanksgiving and with December, the arrival of Winter’s coziness.  Soon enough, Spring and then Summer will be back on the horizon.  I’ll embrace all of it and be glad for the season to come,  as is my way.  

And So It Begins

This week begins the all-school faculty meetings to ease us into the start of a new school year.  New students will come for a half day on Friday; everyone returns the day after Labor Day. and from there we are off and running. This week is faculty meetings and last-minute preparation; a chance to return to the regular hours of the school year.  I was up with the sunrise this morning.  A new year is always exciting and there is much to look forward to, though I’ll miss today’s opening meeting in exchange for T’s post-surgical appointment.

We’re looking forward to having the cast off and giving her back her left hand.  We’re still celebrating the good news that the excised tumor was benign.  The week will find us looking to return to our familiar habits, T no longer under the haze of serious pain relief and neither of us fretting about a malignant tumor.

This is my second school year with a boy in college; my first start to the year living in the same house as T.  I’m especially looking forward to the daily routines of being together at the end of each day.  At school, I’ve a series of new lessons for my 7th graders and plans for all-school field trips in October.  There is much to look forward to as this year begins and even more for which to be grateful.  

September Front Porch

The porch got a wash for the start of the school year.  The sunflower flag is waving.

So far, September has been warm and so the indoor plants are still outside.  The shefflura keep me company when I sit in the rocker, which I try to do in the afternoon.  

The fuchsia hanging baskets are looking a little weary but there is a bloom or two left and so they will stay up for the month.

The table has a blue gingham cloth, plants, summer flowers, my wooden village and some lovely fairy lights to make me smile.  Though school has begun and I’ll be out here less than I would like, the porch is my happy place and it remains as welcoming as ever for September.

Bulletin Board 2018-2019 School Year

I have a bulletin board in my office that is one part inspiration board and one part memory board.  Each August, I take the items off the board and then put up a new display.  All year long, I collect items for my bulletin board.  It’s a reflection of recent adventures, things I am or love and believe, and there are items that are there simply because I like the way that they look or the ideas they invoke.   There are always historical figures, flowers, and political buttons.  Last week, I put the new board together.  This week, I made some tweaks and now it’s complete.

I enjoy seeing it every day.  That’s happy!

First Days and Fresh Starts

Every year at the closing ceremony for the Middle School, I watch 8th graders and their parents smile as they celebrate the coming excitement of high school.  For the most part, this celebration is dry-eyed.  Middle schoolers are in the midst of a confusing transition and the few parents wrap up their child’s time in middle school with the wish to have those years back.  But I know how fast high school will pass and I cherish the tweens and teens in my care, even when the journey is difficult.

Today is the first day of class at my school.  JT also starts classes at Springfield College, where he’s been for the last two weeks enjoying Cross Country pre-season training.  For him, it’s the first day of his next academic journey.  I’ve had many first days of school but I still enjoy the tradition of a fresh start.  This year it comes with the reminder that time passes quickly.  I plan a year to make the most of it.  

That’s happy! 

Letting Go: First Day of School

Today, JT started his Senior year of high school.  He’s a “lifer” at our school, having begun classes on this campus in 2003, when he was three years old.  Today is the last day I will snap his “first day of school” picture.   JT graciously yielded to my photo request.  He realizes that the year ahead is our last in clearly charted territory.

By this time next year, he’ll be in his first year of college.  Some of the days may have been long but the years since I gave birth to him have passed by quickly.  As this next year unfolds, I plan to write about all the tradition in our family, the things I did mindfully to remind JT that he is loved, and always in preparation for my expectation that it is my job to launch him into the world.   I’m going to call this collection “Letting Go” because that’s really what it’s about.

Today, as his last school year begins, I’m thinking of the years that he held my hand as we walked to his classroom door.  By first grade, I walked him to the main door and he travelled the last few feet by himself, calling, “I love you Mama,” as he walked off.  In second grade, I carried his bag while he and his broken leg travelled on crutches to get to class.  By third grade, he was ready to go on his own and I haven’t walked him to class since then.  Bit by bit, he has embraced independence.  This morning, he let me make his picture and then he drove to school himself, delivering flowers as he picked up his girlfriend on the way.  

And so his Senior year begins.

Bulletin Board

I’ve always had a bulletin board display in my classroom and when I moved to the Middle School, the bulletin board came to my office.  Each August, I remove the items from the previous school year and then reconstruct the board for the coming school year.

Many items change, though there are a few themes that are consistent.  I always have a few pictures from my summer adventures.  This year, that’s JT and T in Kansas City at Kaufman Stadium.  I’ve got JT, his grandmother,  and his cousin C in Kings Canyon among the Sequoia trees.  An updated picture of my tall nephews and JT are there, as they are every year.  There is always a little baseball; this year that’s the Kaufman Stadium photo as well as the Kansas City Monarchs jersey and the postcard of Buck O’Neil, both obtained at the Negro League Baseball Hall of Fame in Kansas City.  I added in a picture of JT in the St. Louis Cardinals bull pen.  I’ve got a St. Louis Cardinals logo as well.  

There are stickers and things that amuse me; reminders of the spirit I hope to bring to my work.   There are photos I made and like; this year’s pumpkins will be swapped out for other seasonal photos as the year progresses.

I also pick a few items of historical significance.  There is something presidential; this year’s honors went to George Washington on an antique postcard and a card with pictures and quotes from Washington, Lincoln, and FDR.   There are a number of campaign buttons from my collection; Hillary Clinton buttons are on their way.  I don’t have a T-rump button and I won’t be buying one.   I also include an item that reminds me of the focus of one of my American history class; this year that’s Harriet Scott, the wife of Dred Scott, the man whose 1857 court case shook the nation into understanding just what it would take to end slavery.  Buck O’Neil, alive a generation later, and playing baseball in a segregationist nation, is yet another reminder of what I will teach this year.

There are always flowers —— this year it’s a lovely zinnia seed pack (these were planted in my backyard garden) as well as the antique postcard of a flower market in San Francisco.

The bulletin board is meant to be brain candy, fodder for my memories and imagination.  It’s made up of items and mementos that make me smile and make me think.  It’s hopeful and happy and its creation is one of my favorite traditions for the start of the school year.

Getting My School Legs

The first day of school was Tuesday.  That evening, our school had a performance to celebrate our 250th year and so yesterday wasn’t a school day.  I did go to work, but I was in summer mode, with wet hair and flip flops.  Last night, I struggled to fall asleep, my mind whirling with all the things that need to be done.  This year, we’ve adopted a new schedule, one with longer periods and a rotation.  We needed the change, but it certainly leads to a more complicated new school year.

From today on out, we settle into our regularly scheduled days.  And by settle, I mean start to teach and live with the new schedule we’ve adopted.  So much planning has proceeded these weeks that I can no longer sort out what excites me and what terrifies me about the new schedule.  I’m ready to start living with the days we’ve planned.

As anxious as I am to settle in to the normal routines, I still got up this morning and longed for an extra cup of coffee on the front porch.  So I may be ready to really get the school year underway, but I’m clearly not ready to say goodbye to the relaxation of the summer!