First Week Back: 157 New Names, a Rebellious Copier, and (Finally) Matching Ruana Panels
Y'all, we survived the first week of school! 157 new students, which means 157 new names to learn, and if I'm honest, it will probably take me the entire semester to get them all down pat. I am great with faces — give me a face, and I will remember it forever — but names? Not so much. 😆
This first week was full of the good kind of nerves. New year jitters for the students, and if we're being honest, for me too. This is my 15th year teaching high school, and there was a stretch early on where I genuinely didn't think I'd make it past year 10. Fifteen years in, there are still things about this job nobody warns you about before you sign up.
Like the fact that apparently part of my job description is "copier repairman." Some days I want to drag that copier out to a field like that famous scene in Office Space and go to town on it with a baseball bat. But I've learned that if you talk to her softly and nicely, she'll work — well, some of the time anyway.
On a more serious note, one of the things I didn't expect was how much more than "teacher" this job would ask me to be. Some days I'm a parent. Some days I'm a psychologist. Some days I'm a nurse handing out band-aids and playing "does this actually need the clinic," an IT support tech when a Chromebook decides it's had enough for the day, a social worker, a coach and cheerleader in the same breath, a custodian right alongside that copier, a motivational speaker at 9 in the morning, and every so often a straight-up detective trying to figure out who actually did it. A few of my students have called me Mama Warren, usually when they're dressed up for a presentation and need serious help with their collar, or they didn't realize that basting thread on a new suit jacket is supposed to come off before you wear it. I don't have kids of my own, so honestly, I love getting to step into that role. Other days it's harder — the days that call for discipline, for helping a kid learn to make a better choice than the one they just made. Some days they just need somebody to listen. And every so often, like with a few of my students at the end of last school year, what they need is to learn to crochet. I will teach any kid who asks, any time, no question.
Speaking of crochet, I finally connected the two panels of my Creekside Ruana, and so far, they match! We'll see if the third time really is the charm. I don't want to jinx it, so I'm not saying anything else about it. 😆
She matches! Excuse Emme, she has been extra clingy since I went back to work and won’t leave me alone. 😆
There's something about this season — new names, new faces, old worries about whether I'll get it right again this year — that reminds me I'm not the only one doing the calling and the knowing.
"But now, thus says the Lord, he who created you... Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine."
— Isaiah 43:1
Every one of those 157 names matters to somebody, and this year I get to be one of the people who learns them. Here's to a good semester, y'all.
Anybody else still working on names three weeks from now? Tell me I'm not alone.
Ariana 🧶
