Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
Ode to a new school year – a teacher’s work is never done
Here’s a ‘write out’ colleagues who aren’t overjoyed, happy excited to be beginning the new school year (yet again).
I’m not writing for the bright eyed and bushy tailed newly qualified youngsters or not so youngsters who anxious yet sooo happy to have a job and to be gearing up to be getting to to know their new companions over the next school year. Every year they get a guernsey. They get a greeting and a photo op in the local or even national papers. Their Australia Day is filled with optimism and anticipation as they look forward (finally) to the start of a new school year. They’re set, as far as they can be. ‘Smart not too casual’ clothes? Check. Plans for their classroom layout? Scope and sequence curriculum planning documents? Check. Check. Posters? Displays? Board work? Check. Check. Check.
No, those aren’t the colleagues I’m writing for.
I’m writing for all my teaching colleagues who spend Australia Day hoping the following week won’t be spent in a poorly furnished classroom which is boiling hot and without any form of functional cooling, I’m writing for those who hope that the ‘first day back meetings’ will allow for at least half an hour to find out where the new office is and what furniture, carpeting and other items need to be brought from home to make it habitable. Extra time to actually remove last year’s coffee, blood sweat and tearstains from a small patch of desk would be a bonus!
I’m writing for the ‘old teaching hands’ who will need to hunt for the set questions, assignments, rubrics, essay topics, list of ‘to dos’ and other essential materials they managed hurriedly to cobble together for Week One D-day before being the last to leave the building in a frazzled yet lethargic heap after the end of term ‘chicken and champers’ and congratulatory backslapping the night before last minute Christmas shopping.
I’m writing to encourage, commiserate with and salute all my colleagues who look and feel old before their time, especially after the habitual nightmare before term starts way too early yet again. Yes, that’s right, those who have been in the teaching and child and helicopter parent wrangling game far too long. Those who are over spending their hard earned holidays taken at the most expensive time of year in locations where they are still unable to avoid the “Hi Miiiis” and “Hey Sir” (of the unwanted yet still polite) cries of their inescapable charges.
I’m writing to wish all the best for the new school year to those who really deserve it and keep coming back, year after long school year because they are committed and do it in spite of the lack of acknowledgement. Good Luck and Happy New School Year!
*** Special Best wishes for those, like me celebrating their birthdays on the first day of the new school year when you really can’t come up with any believable or acceptable reason for celebrating they way you really want to…elsewhere.