Just Got Back

Some things I’ve noticed about the first week back to school:

*When you have eighty-five students, you really have to work at getting to know them all. Some stand out early for different reasons: The sneaky kid who’s surprised when you catch him doing the same stuff you’ve caught sneaky kids doing for two decades; the one who is slightly less animated than a sack of potatoes; the one with the distinctive voice you’ll hear echoing in your head while you try to fall asleep at night; the one who seemed so pleasantly energetic at first but is already overwhelming you by Day 3, and so on. I consider it a major accomplishment if I can remember every name away from the visual context of the seating chart by the end of the first week. I think I might be there so far. Maybe. Probably not.

*In my building, at least in the past few years, there’s been quite a turnover in the staff. We were pretty stable for a long run there, which explains why even though I’m twenty years into that staff I might not even be in the top third when it comes to building seniority. But having so many new adults show up can really be confusing. It takes me a lot longer to learn and remember the adult names because many of these people are in positions that will have our paths crossing so infrequently I might actually go an entire academic year without exchanging anything but incidental passing greetings with them. It takes me so long to match the new adult names with the new adult faces that descriptors just begin to build in my head to help me keep them straight: “Sunflower Hat Lady,” or “Body Glitter Neck,” or “Transparent Blue Water Bottle” or “Machine Gun Laugh” to just invent a few off the top of my head that I’ve never actually used but are somewhat indicative of the types of descriptors I'll use.

*I’m not doing a commercial or anything, but Vitamin Water Zero is way better than Propel Zero when it comes to keeping your throat lubricated when you aren’t used to talking for six consecutive hours and suddenly have to start doing it every day. Gum works pretty well too, but you have to time that well. The class will inevitably whine if you try chewing gum in front of them, and using the comeback “Hey, you try talking all day and see how your throat feels afterward” is usually seen as an invitation.

*I’m always intrigued by the way the school lunch menu gets a few rewrites every year. Sometimes new items are added, but usually they just put a little twist on the old name to build anticipation until you see it’s the essentially the same thing it was last year. For example, I’m not certain about this but I strongly suspect that when the menu promises “Herb Seasoned Broccoli,” the herb to which the menu refers is actually steam. And I’m a little nervous about where we’ll be going next week when the “waffle cut sweet potatoes” make their debut. I think I would kind of enjoy the challenge of revising the names of some lunch menu items. I wonder how you get that gig.

*My school benefited from our previous principal making new technology a priority, which means that every classroom is wired with a sound system that has the teacher on a microphone. The differences in the volume levels people use make me question if we’re all using the same standard for what is considered appropriately loud, or if perhaps there are a few people beginning to experience diminished hearing.

*If anyone can explain the physics to me about how a kid can have a desk so messed up that it won’t even close when they have spent fewer than six total hours sitting at it, I’d love to get that cleared up.

*In the first week of school when the temperature is still comfortably in the 80s, everyone is an amateur meteorologist. Especially in a building like mine that is 95% non-air-conditioned and mostly made out of brick from the 1950s. Whenever somebody walks into a room or a hallway or a sunny patch in the hallway or a room that does have air-conditioning, they feel they have to comment on the temperature difference as if they are the only one who notices it. I admit I’m guiltier than most people about this. The forecast this week promises some highs in the 60s, which for me means sweatshirts and shorts weather. I am so psyched about this I can’t even begin to tell you.

*I always forget how many new people there are in the building when I read e-mails from the office, then I remember the secretary has to go over procedural points a lot of people don’t know about yet and it makes me so glad she’s the one doing that kind of thing and not me -- pretty sure I wouldn’t have the patience. I also forget that it’s easy to spot the people who have less patience with others when it comes to e-mail. I’m assuming if someone sends the entire building mailing list a message written in a 72-point font, they are reaching the end of their rope.

*My favorite moment of clueless innocence so far this year: One of my girls proudly showed me the tennis-ball shaped chicken she had securely suction-cupped to the inside of her desk. Perhaps only a day after I had made a point about how much I did not want to see anyone keeping toys in their desks.

And yet, I still so truly love my job.