The first day of our wonderful new school finally arrives! I barely slept last night. I was full of excitement...could the children who were on this exciting journey with me possibly be as excited as I was? The faces I was first greeted with were familiar ones, however, much quieter versions of the children I knew in a previous environment. In fact they looked somewhat like a deer in headlights might! Children and parents began to explore the new spaces which exceeded expectations in terms of general environment and provoked many questions in terms of learning and organisation? As questions were answered there were many delightful sighs and for some more questions....I'm beginning to think that we are going to have many questions to answer in the upcoming days, weeks and months!
Discussions with parents progressed and I was confronted with questions about how I felt at this point. It was then that I became a tad embarrassed. My emotions of excitement weren't as I had expected and I was so overwhelmed that happy tears welled in my eyes. My next encounter was with a young girl who was also teary eyed...she was uncontrollably crying.... completely overwhelmed by the whole experience! I told her how I had felt the same and we made a pact to smile and enjoy the day...I'm sure that her smiling was because of how amused she was that I could possibly have been feeling emotional too!
The day whizzed by at lightning speed ....what a privilege it is to work with such an enthusiastic group. The concerns of how we were working within our spaces were beginning to be ironed out as we moved about and worked within each area. And then there were the colourful personalities that decided they weren't going to conform to what we as educators had expected of them....so early into our first day our restorative justice focus was put to the test!...there are always those children who wish to stand out and seek extra attention and for one of these children once wasn't enough today! A visit to the DP it was for two individuals and following their return it was obvious a new bond was formed.....I'm interested to see how this will pan out tomorrow :)
Oh and one of the many highlights of the day...an eager personality presented me with an apple. "An apple for the teacher" someone said...."are you hungry?"
No comments:
Post a Comment