I have always loved the beginning of school. Summer is giving way to the cool air and warm colors of fall; the days are growing shorter, and the sunlight is growing deeper and more golden as shadows slowly begin to lengthen. I look forward to Labor Day, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. I cast off the heat and weariness of late summer, and I step a little lighter, and my attitude shines just a little brighter.
I love the beginning of school because anything seems possible. The missed homework assignments, the bungled tests, the sloppy, last-minute compositions from the year before are behind us. Students have new teachers, and teachers new students. For the teachers, the year ahead seems a time of renewal, a time to try new ideas, to make new resolutions, to explore new techniques. For students, the year promises success. They will do their homework on time, they will pay attention in class, they will be tolerant and patient with their peers. They will balance athletics, work, school, clubs, boyfriends, and girlfriends in ways that seemed impossible last year. The year ahead is a blank slate and all of us feel that we can write a new story on that slate.
For those of us involved in the 1 to 1 Initiative at New Bern High School, this year holds particular promise. We are all of us, teachers and students, proceeding into uncharted territories. The sophomore class of 2010 will forever be the first full class at New Bern High School to receive laptops for use at school and at home. The teachers of these students, myself included, will be the first teachers at New Bern High School to attempt to fully correlate technology with core, academic classes. It's as if the year ahead is a cleared field into which we will all step and work and play, composing there our stories for this year.
Yes, I love the beginning of a new school year, and I love the fall, but I know too that every year, as both a teacher and a student, I have encountered obstacles I could never have predicted. I have experienced successes and failures, undertakings that worked, and projects that didn't. The same will be true for all of us this year, but I do encourage everyone involved in the 1 to 1 Initiative to hold onto the hope we feel as school begins. Let us be patient with each other, let us learn from each other, and let us be willing to take risks and every once in a while to experience failure.
The year is new. Let us step into it gladly, and let us try to maintain throughout the year the hope and promise we feel now, so that in the end we will have written some new and quite interesting stories.
