Chins up, men. This is war. Actually, it's elementary school, but I understand your confusion.
Tomorrow is my first official day as an assistant principal at Zeb Vance Elementary School. The staff and I have been back for a week, but tomorrow we'll be joined by the kids, and that means the game will change. Even now, those little kinders are setting out their clothes and carefully reviewing the newly-purchased items carefully placed inside their backpacks. They're asking older siblings for advice, and mothers are telling them to have stiff upper lips and to be brave.
I haven't been to elementary school for sixteen years. I'm not quite sure what to expect, although I've been told to carry a portable bottle of hand sanitizer. It seems snot and vomit are in rich supply within the tabernacles of these little munchkins, and they're not at all hesitant about sharing.
But it's not the vomit that's got me worried. It's not even their perpetually sticky fingers or their naturally loud dispositions, or curious wee'uns engaging in a game of kissing tag. In all honesty, the thing I'm most worried about is...well, nothing.
It seems strange, even for me. For the last three years, this night has been marked by a fierce, gripping anxiety that wouldn't be shaken, like my stomach was on spin cycle. Every teacher knows exactly what I'm talking about. On the Eve of the Battle, even a soldier with experience wonders if he'll make it out the other end alright. Of course, it was worst my first year. August 25th, 2009. I still remember every whit and detail of that day. My heart damn near leapt out of my chest it was beating so violently when I first stood before my students. Sweat beaded off my forehead like a bottle of coke pulled from a vending machine. When I saw my boys for the first time, I was stunned at their staggering height, their deep, throaty voices, and that their mustaches and goatees were far thicker than my own. My girls were women for all intensive purposes. Two of them were mothers. One was expecting. I never felt so white in all my life.
But tonight is different. Tonight I feel at peace. I'd rather say that I'm looking forward to tomorrow, and the new adventures it will surely bring. My constituency has changed, and so has my charge. Starting tomorrow, I'm not so much called to teach as I am to lead. And these children house a more fertile, malleable class of brain than I am used to, and I hope that will allow me to do a greater good than I have with adolescents over the past three years.
