~and for this I thank Tracy~

I wasn't going to blog this week, mostly because I felt I'd be too busy with getting my classroom ready for the first day of school on August 24th.  So when I signed off from my most recent blog post of August 15th, it was with the thinking that I'd be back after the first day of school was done and in "the books."

In fact, I ended it with the paragraph shown below.

One week from Monday school will begin here in our part of Texas.  All next week teachers will meet together to plan and get things ready for the first day of school.  It will be a very busy time for all of us.  I have much to learn and only a very short time in which to do so.  Much lies ahead of me to accomplish and so I plan to take a week away from writing in this blog post.  Even though I love writing each and every day it is good once in a while to go away from it.  Time away is not a bad thing but one thing is for certain.  I will be back.

I thought I'd take a break from it but I was wrong.  
There is something I want to say.

I have a good friend from high school who now lives in faraway Indiana.  Tracy is one of those people that I knew from "the land of long ago and far, far away".  We both grew up in the little town of Haven, Kansas.  Tracy is kind and thoughtful, always doing the sort of things that show people how much she cares.  She did a nice thing for me, not all that long after I posted my blog on Facebook.  Tracy posted a video of another teacher who was giving an inspirational talk to other educators about the value of building relationships with their students and in turn teaching those very same students to build strong relationships with one another.  

I watched it, not once but many times over the course of the past weekend.  Each time I viewed it, I thought of all the children that I've had the chance to meet, teach, nurture, and build a relationship with over the course of nearly 4 decades now.  Even though I don't have the exact numbers, suffice it say that it's probably more than 100.  In fact, I guess you could add a "0" to it and come up with a much more reasonable estimate.  No matter what the final number is, one thing is for sure.

I've known many.

Building strong and valuable relationships with the children under your care has got to begin on day #1 and that doesn't necessarily mean the very first day of school either.  It really begins on "meet the teacher" night which for our district will be this coming Thursday evening.  Students have to know that you are ready for them to arrive in your classroom, you are prepared for them to be there, you want for them to succeed, and oh yes, one other thing.

They must have a sense of feeling accepted and safe in your care.

One of the very first things all 120 of my English students will do next week is to become an official part of our classroom community.  I'm a firm believer and a staunch advocate for the notion that if children are going to be a part of your world for the better part of nearly 8 hours a day then they dang sure ought to feel as if they really belong there.  The idea of a strong community within a classroom is actually quite crucial to its overall success and the lack of it is reflected by quite the opposite.  It's important enough that I choose to spend the first two days of school doing team building activities and times of self reflection, not only for the kids but for myself as well.  

We'll be making our own community "rock jar", just like the one that my first graders back in Olathe, Colorado did last year.  It's going to have to be slightly bigger in order to accommodate more than 5 times the stones than "the 20" placed inside.  A person could look at it as a "visual" and it is, yet it is so much more than that.  It's the real thing.  It stands for who we are as a group of learners, both the teacher and the students alike.

It will be interesting to see how the beginning week plays out as we spend those first few days in getting to know one another.  I will tell those 9, 10, 11, and 12-year olds the very same thing I have told children for many years now and the words that I say will come straight from deep within this old teacher's heart.

I will tell them this.

"Children, if you ever have a teacher who says that they don't love you, then here's what you do.  You find another teacher."

"Children if you ever have a teacher who says that they don't ever make a mistake, then here's what you do.  You find another teacher."

So to Tracy, that dear and loving friend that I grew up with so very long ago now, I give my thanks.  Her kind gift of a video on my timeline helped me to find my "voice" in writing this blog post to you today.  For her timely reminder of how very important it is to value the "relationship", I am this day beholden.

It was only a jar filled with rocks yet it was so very much more.  I brought it with me over the big mountain and down to the other side onto the plains of northern Texas.  It shall remain with me for the rest of my days of teaching.  20 sweet and precious little children plus some very wonderful adults placed their thoughts and dreams inside of it.