The First Day of School

     Tomorrow is my first day of school.  It will be interesting to see how much I have grown from my 140 kids when I first started this blog. Anyone want to venture a guess as to the new number?  My guess is somewhere around 165-175.  We will see tomorrow and I will update then.

     For the first time in my 7 years of first days, I am not stressing tomorrow.  It is started to feel like a beautiful cycle of ins and outs.  My first few years, I had the night before jitters every time:

     "Will they like me?"
     "Will I like them as much as I liked the last bunch?"
     "Will I have a lot of trouble makers?"
     "Will they do their work?"
     "Will they think I'm fun?"
     "Have I forgotten something important I was supposed to do?"

     I feel very prepared and I am starting to realize that every year is different, but the same too.  Some will like me. Some won't.  Each group of students has things I love and things that are difficult, and they are always different, which keeps things interesting. There will always be a few trouble makers.  Most of them will do their work. A few will not. I will be better at responding to those few this year than I was the prior year. Some will think I'm fun and some will laugh at my jokes. Some will roll their eyes and wish it was a bigger school with more teacher options so that they could beg their counselors to switch them to the cool guy who just shows movies all year. I will for sure have forgotten something. I will make it work at the last minute somehow anyway.

     There is much to be excited about right now. There is a positive energy among the faculty, and I just have this feeling that great things are going to happen.

     First day of school... here I come!