Teachers are already busy decorating bulletin boards, creating seating charts and making reading nooks comfy.
They’re making sure each child has a place in the classroom, from personalized placemats to name tags over backpack hooks.
Parents are likewise getting their children ready for school. Haircuts and dental appointments are scheduled, new shoes are in the closet, and pens, pencils and notebooks are in new backpacks.
This coming year, children will learn to read and how to find and check out a book from the library. They’ll memorize their student identification number so they can get their lunch all by themselves in the cafeteria.
Parents and teachers will worry, children will hope they can snag a swing at recess and teens will wonder if they’ll have friends to help them through the coming year.
The most important education, however, comes from what we don’t prepare for –life lessons. Over the course of the coming year, teachers will be called upon to teach lessons that weren’t covered in college.
They’ll have to handle kindergarteners and first graders who miss their parents so much, they can’t stop crying. Teachers will learn to console those children but also build their confidence so they can face the day by themselves.
Middle school teachers coax confidence from a shy sixth grader who’s being bullied or ignored by the other pre-teens. These teachers will have to react quickly to youngsters who are changing from little kids to pre-teens. Those mood swings are real, as any one of them will tell you.
High school teachers are handling young adults. They know how to make their own meals and be the one in charge.
Many hold down part- or full-time jobs in addition to going to school full time. They’ve learned how to balance adult responsibilities on young, still forming shoulders.
Teachers learn to accept the circumstances their students endure but still push them to learn geometry, chemistry, trigonometry and history.
More importantly, teachers have to convince a child living in poverty that an education is a ticket out of the situation.
They teach children growing up in wealth that they have to rely on themselves to make it in life. Not their parents’ money or influence – the one person they can rely on lives in their skin.
Coaches have a daunting job. They have to be tough on their athletes, to push them to achieve both mentally and physically.
They teach boys and girls to be part of a team. In a society that’s focused on the individual, to become part of a team and give up the spotlight for the greater good is a delicate skill.
Administrators must look beyond the pretty bulletin boards and color-coordinated cubbies to how well the teacher connects with the kids in his or her class.
Let’s hope the principal remembers the teachers on staff are people who struggle with often insurmountable problems they did not create. The same goes for the kids in the classroom. Most are doing the best they can.
Do teachers discipline and correct yet smile and love? Parents understand how difficult this is as a mom or dad but they often forget how difficult this balancing act can be in a classroom.
This year, let’s look for academic and athletic achievements but, most of all, growth in each child’s and each adult’s belief in themselves. At the end of the year, they can all be more than they believed they could be on that first school day in August.
Above all, let us pray for grace and gratitude in the classroom for everyone.
This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.