It’s that time of year.

I have come to a frightening conclusion.

I am the decisive element in the classroom.

It is my personal approach that creates the climate.

It is my daily mood that makes the weather.

As a teacher I possess tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous.

I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.

I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.

In all situations it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated

or de-esacalated, and a child humanized

or dehumanized.

-Haim Ginott, Teacher and Child

September.

I’ve prepped for three-and-a-half-weeks in a big old room without air-conditioning. But… I am more inspired than ever.  I am re-reading Harry Wong’s books and for fun (or torture) I’ve revisited my classroom journals from my first year. In October 2007 I wrote, “I can’t wait for my third year. In my third year I know I will be relaxed.” It took four years, but now, I can truly say, I am at peace and confident in what I do.

What will it be in 30 years? What will I take away from all the inservices and teacher books and my old journals? I hope in 30 years I will have ventured into some other work, stripping myself clean of know-how and routine once again to be novice… I am kind of sickly akin to the raw, vulnerable feeling of cluelessness. But who can predict the future.

So here I am, another year. A year where every day I get to use my gifts to love and hopefully inspire. What more can one ask for?

Every day millions of students arrive at American classrooms in search of more than reading and math skills. They are looking fora light in the darkness of their lives, a Good Samaritan who will stop and bandage a burned heart or ego.

                                                                                                             -Jim Frelease

~ by Jen on September 9, 2009.