"No matter how solid and comfortable and necessary the status quo feels today..it was once new, untried, and uncomfortable." -William Bridges
If you are a parent, or an educator, fall is a season of change, a new beginning. For parents, it is a new grade, teacher(s), classmates, rules, and expectations. As an educator, it is new students, classrooms, parents, and staff. While these are all natural changes, we must shed the comfort developed over the previous 180 school days. The first few months are filled with excitement, trepidation, and a prevailing sense of chaos. New routines, after school commitments, and family time must be juggled and prioritized. How can so much change in one summer? Why does this feel so foreign? The answer: transition.
Change is inevitable. Our children, or students, advance through elementary, middle, and high school. Parental identity and responsibilities morph and develop as children advance in age. Teachers switch grades, schools, or roles every few years. Change transpires around us; however, transition takes place within us. Part of why these natural changes are so anxiety provoking is that they elicit two things: a loss of an old identity and the unknown. From a parenting perspective, you no longer have a 5th grader, but a middle school student. This change thrusts you into transition, as you attempt to discern what this means in regards to your relationship, privacy, independence, and privileges. As a teacher, it means recalibrating to preadolescence, and attempting to figure out how you will instill independence, problem-solving, and responsibility within a new group of students. For children, advancing to middle school means no longer being top of the food chain, rather making new friends, learning a different schedule, and higher expectations.
Some of us will relish the excitement, but others will mourn the loss of what was, and worry over what will be. Then, in 180 days, after the status quo has been clearly established, the cycle will start over again. You will forget, because summer break will bring vacations, sporting events, the lake, and sleepovers. Then, in the blink of an eye, it is September...
Change is inevitable. Our children, or students, advance through elementary, middle, and high school. Parental identity and responsibilities morph and develop as children advance in age. Teachers switch grades, schools, or roles every few years. Change transpires around us; however, transition takes place within us. Part of why these natural changes are so anxiety provoking is that they elicit two things: a loss of an old identity and the unknown. From a parenting perspective, you no longer have a 5th grader, but a middle school student. This change thrusts you into transition, as you attempt to discern what this means in regards to your relationship, privacy, independence, and privileges. As a teacher, it means recalibrating to preadolescence, and attempting to figure out how you will instill independence, problem-solving, and responsibility within a new group of students. For children, advancing to middle school means no longer being top of the food chain, rather making new friends, learning a different schedule, and higher expectations.
Some of us will relish the excitement, but others will mourn the loss of what was, and worry over what will be. Then, in 180 days, after the status quo has been clearly established, the cycle will start over again. You will forget, because summer break will bring vacations, sporting events, the lake, and sleepovers. Then, in the blink of an eye, it is September...
No comments:
Post a Comment