A Teacher's Advice

To get a teacher's point of view on heading back to school, I invited Sarah from Yes, Teacher.   

This will be my seventh back-to-school season as a special education teacher. It is truly a bittersweet time: on the one hand, the summer joys of having no responsibilities are drawing to a close; on the other hand, a brand new school year with brand new kiddos is starting!


A teacher does several things to get ready for the school year:

1. School supply shopping. Yes, we go broke too!

2. Getting the classroom ready - this can take many, many days.

3. Researching and planning fun, new back-to-school activities.

4. Trying to forget ALL of the summer fun you had. Developing short-term amnesia makes getting back into the habits of work a little easier!

And as a teacher, I always hope that kids and their parents are getting ready by:

1. School supply shopping - already done? Consider buying extra supplies to donate to children in need. I can't tell you how heartbreaking it is to see the sadness in a student's eyes when he/she has NO supplies to drop off on the first day of school!

2. Getting into the habit of going to bed and waking up earlier.

3. Reading daily!

4. Packing in some last minute family fun!

But whether we're all ready or not, soon enough I'll be standing in front of a new group of students; we'll all be wearing our brand new back-to-school outfits and smiling in anticipation of what the new school year will bring!

~Sarah