Back to School!

There is a growing chill in the air.  The daylight hours are getting noticeably shorter.  A small spattering of leaves are turning from brilliant summer green to the yellows and oranges of fall.  Shops are filled with displays of brightly colored back packs, lunch boxes, and yellow pencils sharpened to a fine point.  The teacher in me thrills at the sight of crisp clean notebooks and rainbow boxes of perfect coloring crayons!  The smell of new school supplies never fails to bring a smile to my face, a pep to my step, and a little race in my heart!

I know that in a few weeks time, the crayons will be broken, the notebooks will be filled with scrawls, and students the world over will search in vain for sharpened pencils inside desks that look as though they've been hit by small tornados!  But, oh, the joy of all the pristine new school supplies, packed away neatly in brand new backpacks, just waiting to be used and abused by eager little hands!

Something about the advent of a school year, a fresh start, a brand new beginning holds so much promise, so much potential, so much excitement!  As a teacher, I thrill at the thought of a new group of kids who have never experienced my class before!  I think about all the new discoveries, new experiences, ways they will grow and change over the next few months.  So much promise!  I also think about myself... I'm so fresh, so eager, with a new reserve of patience and calm.  

I know it won't last forever.  The exhaustion will set in.  The patience will wear thin, sometimes VERY thin!  The calm will gradually be eroded by a thousand emergencies, requests, questions, demands, expectations, papers to grade, lessons to plan, parents to call, and forms to fill out, and frustrations flying in from every direction.  

But... for now...

All that I can see is the promise of a new beginning.  A chance to get things right that I got wrong last year.  An opportunity to plan a better lesson, try a new technique, be more organized, listen to my students...  be a better teacher!  

We all need new beginnings.  Times when we can reset the clock, wipe the slate clean, and start over again.  One of the things I really love about teaching is that once a year, you can do just that.  Each school year is, in the immortal words of Anne Shirley, "fresh, with no mistakes in it."  

So, I'll just bask in the anticipation that fills me every single fall, whether I teach kindergarten, 6th grade, or preschool!   And in a few months, when I'm battling the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual fatigue that goes along with teaching children, I will try to think back and remember all these happy back to school feelings and remember that His mercies are new every morning!

Lamentations 3:21-24

 This I recall to my mind,Therefore I have hope.

 Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning;Great is Your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,“Therefore I hope in Him!”