The Return of the Weekly Message-Somebody’s Baby

This week marks the return of the weekly message. Each week, you will receive emails from me with tidbits of information to pass along or share that will hopefully inspire, revive, or validate your practice.

For those of you who are new, you will notice last year’s weekly messages on the C and I webpage.

For those of you who were here last year, you may have noticed I did not send a message last week. Last week was a challenging week in the Griffin household. You see, I have crossed over. No, I haven’t gone to the dark side; I have crossed over to the other side of the teacher’s desk.

My oldest son is now a great, big Kindergartener. For years, I laughed to myself as I saw parents with attachments issues. Yes, I said parents with issues. The children are usually fine.

Now I understand them totally.

A few days before the start of school, I saw my son’s Principal. Since we moved over the summer, I had yet to receive my notice with his teacher’s name on it. Since his friends already knew their teachers, I couldn’t resist asking.

When she told me the teacher’s name, I burst into tears. She asked me if I was disappointed. My response was, “No. Waker has a teacher!”

I love and respect his teacher. I adore the Principal and I trust them to take care of him. And for those of you who are parents, you know exactly how I felt.

I was thinking, “This is my baby I am trusting to you.”

The dust has now settled on our first week. The teacher has already replaced Mommy as the smartest woman who ever lived. (My teacher says to write it this way.) I can say we all survived.

My son is happy as a clam and loving his new found responsibility and friends. I am still adjusting to his new found responsibility and friends.

The lesson I have learned by becoming the parent of a student in Hickory Public Schools is this: each one of our students is somebody’s baby if they are 5 or 15. Parents trust us to prepare their children as best we can. They trust us to love them and care for them when they are not around and even if they are not so loveable that day.

The amazing thing to me is that our teachers consistently do just that each and every day with all too few pats on the back. That is the definition of going the extra degree.

I hope my son always loves school as much as he does right now. I hope he maintains his love for learning and his excitement for all things new.

Thank you all for the hours of preparation you put in getting ready for our students. Thank you for the time and care you put into all your lessons. Thank you for the extra things you do in your classroom to make sure your students feel special.

You sure make parents like me proud to have children in Hickory Public Schools.