As school ended in early June the financial chaos of the school district where I work scattered teachers to other buildings to fill in for retirements rather than lose positions. We expected it...I guess I was buckled and ready for the ride if it came. It has come. After 5 years teaching in an urban school among a classroom full of a wonderful rainbow of tans, chocolates, mochas and brown faces where my own pale drab stands out....I am being placed a grade lower at the other end of the academic and socioeconomic spectrum across town. Tears dripped from the farewells of my deepest soul all to myself as I sat amid boxes of personal things in my cleaned out room where a day before hugs and autographs ended our year. Most other teachers were gone, the building hot and quiet. I locked the door of DO104 one last time and packed my car. No more a Southside teacher. What was I now?
The summer is my buffer between what was and what will be. A new granddaughter and a couple masters classes, a week at the beach will all help direct me to the newer me. But I'm a little lost.
Hopefully the time to garden, weed, water, listen to the birds and count the kinds of butterflies this year will slow me down enough to still the threat of fear that I won't be able to rise to the new occasion., to tackle the new mountain.
Is there advice to be had from those of you going /gone through a similar switch in the game? I need a bit of help in this buffer season when the thoughts of Fall drift in on a cloud. I'll be watching to see what you have to offer....in between marking down the butterflies.