Open House: 28 Yearbooks

This puts things into perspective.  It is my annual display of annuals, my yearly display of yearbooks.  From my first year (1990/1) to last year (2017/8), I now have a complete collection of 28 of these precious mementos.

Really!  Twenty-eight years.

This is more than a pile of pages, a plethora of pictures, a menagerie of moments.  These are the last 28 years of my life - a big chuck of them anyway, 28 years of connections with other human beings, 28 years of entertaining and teaching, laughing and crying, 28 years of living, very nearly 53 percent of my lifetime.

This, the 29th year of this great experiment, and I continue to tweak and tighten my teaching.  Those in the know have long realized that a teacher never "arrives", that we never experience mastery in this profession.  I suppose that's because there is certainly a human factor to our job.  We don't assemble our products on the conveyor in a standardized line.  Here are some observations:

• ​Our products have names.
• Our products have souls.
• Our products have flaws.
• Our products come packed with history.
• Our products come to us with appetite.
• Our products are not lessons forged from ore discovered in data mines.
• Our products are more than graphite on paper.
• Our products have tremendous potential energy.
• Our products require occasional troubleshooting.
• Our products move on their own, think on their own, and make decisions on their own.

• Our products cannot be bought on the open market, neither wholesale nor retail.
• Our products are both consumers and producers.
• Our products have tremendous potential to succeed, but only after they fail.
• Our products are precious and fragile.
• Our products affect other products.
• Our products do not come to us under warranty.
• Our products grow and adapt.
• Our products are sentient beings. 
• Our products strive for a brighter tomorrow.

On and on we could go, filling the pages of a book with thoughts concerning our students.  At this time of the year, I tend to have double vision:  I look back to almost three decades of elementary students, and I look forward to the next one.

We're all a little apprehensive.

Nervous.

Anxious.

We're all a little frightened about what lies ahead - but all we need to know is this:

• We will make mistakes.
• We will delight in finding our mistakes and learning from them.
• We will celebrate each other.
• We will celebrate our successes.​
• We will celebrate our progress.

• ​We will learn and practice good citizenry.
• We might learn as much about the human condition as we do about the Three Rs.
• We will laugh and cry.  We will get angry, and we will love each other.
• We will be a family.