Beautiful Beginning

Since the spring, part of me has anxiously awaited the start of the 2008-2009 school year. Some of my anticipation resulted from the realization that my course load last year was nearly disastrous for me. It also grew from my joy of returning to the ninth grade curriculum at my school (I adore mythology, Shakespeare, justice and the other major themes of the course). But, my greatest level of enthusiasm resulted directly from amazing co-teachers. Both of them are easily among the best 5-10 instructors at our school. Even more importantly, they put students first AND still manage to convey their content.

As we began this week, I tried to keep my expectations realistic. We had never taught together. We have a plethora of material to convey (three hours worth of content every day with only 90 total minutes available). We are dealing with over forty students at a time. Yet, even with those realities, my glee continued to percolate. Although I worked to dampen my own spirits, smiles kept erupting from the core of my being. In fact at least six or seven people commented to me that I seemed to be "better."

Now, I know that my narcolepsy is the same. I also recognize that I am coping with it better and have accepted my more of my limitations. Still, my team teaching colleagues fill me with joy. Basically, we never had a "successful" day, this past week. Over the past three days, we never got everything done. Regularly, we had multiple items underdeveloped. Worse, Wednesday focused half the class time on technology issues. Sadly, we couldn't even get half of the students logged onto the network. Yet, I have no option but to define the first three days of class as unmitigated triumphs.

I have enjoyed working with many colleagues over the years, but the only thing I that I can compare to my new team is my team teaching experiences at MITY. My two colleagues are phenomenal. They are brilliant, put students first, love teaching, enjoy laughter, understand how to balance discipline and frivolity, AND drive themselves to get better at their craft. I feel like all three of us are striving to own our biases and agendas. We are also refreshingly honest with one another - praising strengths and challenging weaknesses. Then, we add to this mix the fantastic ninth graders who arrived this week and everything just gets better.

Clearly, we have some super star students, but even those who may have some academic weaknesses seem to be ready to take on the rigorous attitude we are hoping to encourage. A long road lies ahead, but all of us seem ready to travel it together. Plenty of dark days will arise, but we are also trying to build skills that will allow both students and teachers to process those moments productively.

The other incredible issue has been the surges of energy that I have been feeling. I certainly pushed hard this week, but I also found myself have a decent reserve when I would arrive home. The narcolepsy is there, but my new course load feed me in ways that I never had last year. I must continue to work toward a sensible schedule and wise balance, but I also know that my colleagues and students will inspire me to remain healthy and to fulfill my potential. I am also grateful that both of my team teaching partners are already monitoring me to make sure that I keep things in perspective. The joy of this past week could easily lead me to foolishly drive myself into the ground by October. Needless to say, I would like to remain healthy and not miss a day of this school year given the potential that seems to exist within our classroom walls.