The students return in dribs and trickles, jet-lagged and over-tired. On Monday, the energy level was sooooo low. By Tuesday I had them doing morning exercises. Three weeks is an immense amount of time.
I look at the process I go through as a teacher and understand it must be doubly hard on the students. It is too easy to forget how much I love teaching. Now that we are almost back to a full class, I am bursting with all of the things I want to accomplish. Our class is a busy, buzzy hive of energy and ideas.
Of course, it will take them some time to catch up with me. They are tired from vacations in France and India, South Africa and Belgium. We worked on a short introduction of our class for one of the projects and it turns out, between my 25 fifth graders, we speak 11 different languages and have been to more than 18 different countries (and no it doesn't count if you just stopped at the airport.)
I guess, at times, school can seem dull by comparison. But I am happy to be occupied once again by the questions of growing minds which can do so much to quiet mine.
