When September ends

I can't believe it is already the end of September. This month has been a whirlwind. With a new grade and trying out a few new things, I feel like September has been a blink, and you miss it. We have read short stories and watched some short films. We have explored poetry, and we have written essays. I am already excited about the direction of the year. There are a lot of new staff at the school, which brings new energy and new students who bring their unique excellence that we were missing before.

During "Meet the Teacher" this year, a parent told me their child would match my energy. I thought a lot about that statement and how it can apply to teaching. What if all my students match my energy? I have always wanted to model compassion as the go-to when meeting my students where they are. That is the energy I want them to match. I often hear comments from other teachers about how we can't be too soft on kids; they need to learn to be responsible, and they need to learn to be resilient. I agree those are important and useful things. I am not sure that those things rank higher than compassion. Am I tired of waiting for assignments to come in? Yes, it is September, and the answer is yes. That said, I had a student talk to me about everything on their plate; my assignment was their last concern, and rightfully so. Was this a teaching moment in which I reinforced the importance of being resilient or one in which I demonstrated compassion? Does the latter make me weaker? I don't know the answer to these questions. I am unsure if the "old ways" 25 years ago when a late assignment meant a 0 were the good old teaching days.

This year my professional goal is just to keep improving. My hope for my students is that we can develop a learning community built on compassion but work on that resilience and responsibility along the way. I think we can do both. Here is a bit of the journey so far. A little multimodal work and some random pictures.