This has been a busy and tiring week. A whole summer of no school schedules and here we are going to start school tomorrow. I am excited and nervous. Last week being able to meet the new staff and new students at Open House helped to remind me how refreshing it is to have another chance to start over in August. Happy New Year!!! A new school year, a new beginning, a clean slate, for some teachers a new grade level, a new school, and even for others a new house, a new city, a new state. For many of our Kindergarteners a new language.
Oh My! That is a lot of beginnings.
For some it is “only” a new group of students for others everything is new even the language. At Open House, I heard lots of languages, when asked a question in Spanish, I had to slow down and really think. I needed to hear the question a couple of times, I had to concentrate really hard. I got really tired and maybe even felt the beginnings of a headache, from one simple question. This reminded me that many of our students may have watched TV in English this summer, but for many of students they heard and thought in their Native language, not English. It was hard for me to think in Spanish, it was a simple question, but I really had to slow down and think. It almost stopped me in my tracks. Please remember that many of our current and graduated ELL students are going to be in Native Language mode- not English mode the first few days of school. Please give them time to reflect, translate in their brains or with a peer to get back into English mode. We teachers have had a week to get back into the school mode. Our students are where we were last week on Tuesday when we first walked into the cafeteria. We were physically at school but not quite mentally at school. We were happy to see our “old” school friends or for our new staff, full of wonder what our “new” teaching friends would be like.
I know you all have great first days of school planned! This will be a great school year.
You Just Can’t Hide that Wildcat Pride!