The First Days

When I taught in California (and when I was a student as well), school began when it was proper, a couple of days after Labor Day.  You know, when summer was actually coming to a close.  Here in Arizona?  We start in the middle of summer.  It's crazy I tell you.  Pure crazy.  To make matters worse, this is a week of record heat, 113 to 117 degrees.  Frankly, anything over 110 is just miserable.  Especially now, because we are still in monsoon season and the humidity is up making it feel even hotter.  If we could just stay in my cozy air conditioned classroom all day without leaving it might not be so bad.  However, we have to leave, to walk outside, all the way across campus, a few times a day.  Fire drill tour?  Yup.  To specials?  Yup.  To lunch?  Yup.  After school parent pick up duty?  Yup.  And really, it's more than just turning into a sweaty puddle of a mess several times a day.  The heat just sucks the energy and life right out of you.  OK, I'm done now. 

We are three days into school now, and things are going really, really, super well.  I have a fairly large class, 31 students.  I ended last year with 24 so this is a little bit of an adjustment.  Every little thing takes forever long to do because my students need to be trained how to do everything if anything is going to be automatic later.  We haven't gotten into much curriculum yet as we've been focusing on rules, procedures, and community building with just dabbles of actual work.  My little friends need to be eased in to work too, just like the teachers.

This week is also a little crazy because I have meetings every afternoon this week.  It really cuts down on planning time in the afternoon.  I haven't been able to carve out a large chunk of time to really focus and figure out our new Common Core standards.  That part is a little, ok a lot, stressful.  Makes me feel like I don't know what I'm doing.

I'm trying to give myself some grace, and time, to get everything figured out and up and running.  The level of pure exhaustion that comes along with this time of year is truly amazing.  Teachers will totally get this.  We've had some time over summer to let down our guard and only do one or two or three things at a time.  Now?  Completely different!  In the classroom so many things are being juggled at one time, plus you are working things through in the back of your mind, and trying to keep one step ahead of where you are.  The mental and physical juggling is like nothing else.  It also takes a toll.  Combine it with the heat, and it's the perfect storm.

I'm thinking it would be a great idea if the first week of school were all early release days, with no meetings aloud.  Sounds like pure heaven.