September: a significant month in the life of a family all involved in education.
For years, every September I had a recurring imposter syndrome-fuelled nightmare that people found out I wasn’t really a teacher. (I recently told this to my sons, one of who immediately chimed in: “I had a nightmare people found out I’m not really a school boy!”)
My nightmares had some basis in reality. My early experiences of parents’ evenings were sprinkled with comments about how I didn’t look old enough to be teaching their offspring (I totally get this now – I swear some of boys’ teachers look about 12). Once I was helping to run an event at a neighbouring school and was shouted at for running in a corridor. On my first day in my current school, it was an own clothes day, and I got chased out of the finance office, “Students aren’t allowed in here!”
Since I’ve had children and worked only part time, the nightmares have tapered off. Maybe it’s the grey hairs which give me away, or maybe it’s that school no longer occupies all my thinking in the way it used to (I find three boys take up a lot of brain space).
But still, I feel the September pressure: for myself a little, for husband as he starts a new job, and for my boys as they make the adjustments of the new school year.
We have to manage change a bit carefully in our house, thanks to the various sensitivities. (I've blogged about this a bit here: https://sarahhadfi.wixsite.com/website/post/on-balancing-needs also, my very clever and experienced friend Jo is posting all sorts of useful suggestions about helping children deal with the transition of September, in a Facebook group "Finding Joy in the Chaos" - highly recommend https://www.facebook.com/groups/235296575056267 .) And listening to the boys' worries about new teachers and classrooms is a good reminder for me of all the emotions that might come with students arriving in September.
I’ve worked with some more diverse and challenging student groups recently. Once, I was bemoaning to my husband about a tricky experience with one group, and he gave me some wise words: “You never know whose cat died this morning.” It’s a great mantra to live by, the dead cat idea – I’ve since repeated it a lot to the trainee teachers with whom I work. We just don’t always know what home experiences people are going through, and we cannot assume that emotion fuelled behaviour in the classroom is related to the lesson. So as I looked over my new registers this week, and smiled and winced over certain familiar names, I resolved that I should always consider that I don’t know who’s experiencing stress or tragedy and that I should be as sympathetic as I can be. Coincidentally, a lovely colleague of mine just messaged to say that her beloved cat, her companion through a solitary lockdown, has died, which just goes to prove the point.
Back in July, one son was feeling worried about the end of the school term – he likes the routine of school and wanted to pray the holidays would pass quickly so he could get back to it. Then, in September, as we set out uniform and talked about the day ahead, he lamented that the holidays had passed too fast (answered prayer? ha!) and that going to school now felt unfamiliar.
I’m trying to point my boys to the fact that feeling sad about a change normally means that we should feel thankful for the positive thing that went before. If we’re glum about going to school, it means we should be grateful for all the fun things that happened over the summer. If we’re uncertain about starting at a new church, we should be thankful for the lovely years we’ve had with our old church family. The September blues are normal, but how we approach it can change how we see things: let’s try to view September through the rosy glow of the many things we can feel positive about.
Coincidentally, we’ve just come to the end of another cycle through our Barnabas page-a-day Bible (which seems to take us 15 months each time, which I’m happy with!) (Highly recommend this version BTW, not for translation, which I know nothing about, but for covering plenty of content - makes a great present too). We shared the beautiful word-pictures of Revelation and I encouraged the boys to close their eyes and try to imagine the images described, and I asked them how they felt about the idea of the old things passing away, and a new heaven and a new earth coming, without death, crying, or pain. We all confessed to feeling uncertain about the idea of a new earth: we’re used to this one. One boy said he thought it might be too bright and noisy, this great city with a flashing throne and people worshipping in every language (don’t worry, we did also talk about not taking the imagery too literally). But it kind of links to the feeling we get in September: we cling onto the familiar good things, even though we have reason to believe that there are bright things ahead.
I am choosing to overcome the September blues with a rosy view of the good things ahead. Even if this school year is a tricky one, we have eternity to look forward to. And there will be no dying cats there.
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