First Day of School!

I have a secret.

A BIG secret.

A secret so giant that it would blow any four year old's mind wide open.

Are you ready?


I'm pretty sure teachers are more anxious and stressed about the first day than their students are.


Phew! I said it! It's true though. I can't tell you the number of people who were up at 2am with me on facebook, unable to sleep with the first day jitters. For the record, none of them were students.

For some reason, most people think about their teacher on the first day and see this

In fact, when they get to the school they will likely be greeted by a happy man or woman who looks like her-- calm, collected, in charge, and happy.

What they don't realize is that seconds before this smile wipes across their face there are a bunch of teachers huddled together looking more like this

And this

And, of course, this

Now, this is NOT to say that we don't love the first day. I, for one, can vouch for how amazing it is. Getting to know another bunch of students that will touch my life every day for two years is incredible. Knowing all the lit up faces and "aha" moments I will see, the lost teeth, birthdays and success-- that is what makes it all worth while. The reason that we act this way is due to a whole other variety of reasons. You know how your child is terrified that their teacher will be a dragon with three heads that eats fingers and toes for breakfast? We secretly are terrified that your child will be the ONE child in the world we can't teach/handle/manage/understand/etc. Everyone has their own fears. The funny part is, as a teacher, no matter what those fears are, when we face them we do so with such strength and passion for teaching and learning that we conquer!  I was reading through an old behaviour log for one of my former students yesterday and just stared at it thinking, "How did I get through that? She hit me seven times in less than two hours!" But I did and so did she. In the end, I did a ton of reading, after school courses, behaviour program training and we were both successful at the end of her Kindergarten program. (By the way, let that be some proof that teachers actually do work outside of our paid hours. For that one student alone I invested at least 400 extra curricular hours over two years).

But it's still scary.

I think the feeling can be best described by Louis Sacher when he wrote Sideways Stories from Wayside School. In this chapter book the students have a new teacher named Mrs. Jewels. She has heard horrible, terrible stories about how the students in her class are and the students have heard horrible, terrible stories about how she is. When she finally gets to the classroom she sighs a big breath of relief that these children are so nice and sweet that she decides they can't actually be children. Instead, she is convinced they must be smart and cute monkeys, because her students were not supposed to be that fantastic.

 So, parents, teachers and all other people out there, here is to another school year. Here is to 36 *gulp* smiling faces as nervous and excited for the first day as I am. Here is to another year of challenges, excitement and adventure.

~Mrs. Sunshine