Beginning Again

In October 2023, I found this meditation/rumination in a 1990-1994 writing notebook. It was printed on old-style continuous-feed printer paper.

Another school year was beginning, and I was “beginning again” again. My husband had accepted a pastoral appointment to a new church, our family had moved to a new community and a new church, and I had gone through the exhausting process of applying for and being interviewed for a teaching position in all the surrounding school systems. After several interviews and several months of uncertainty and indecision, I had finally accepted a job offer that I thought would be just right for me.

Now I was contemplating the beginning of a new school year. “How will I relate to a new principal and new colleagues?”  “How will I ever learn all the correct procedures at a new school?”  “Can I prove again to people who don't know me that I'm a good teacher?” “Will the students like me?” “What will be different about children in this area?” “Can I esstablish a relationship with them that will allow me to meet their needs educationally?” “What should I do on the first day to establish a positive mindset in the students?”

These and dozens of other questions kept spinning around in my head. All the newest educational terminology was on the tip of my tongue. This year the catch phrases were “whole language” and “cooperative learning.” I had attended an excellent workshop on the use of whole language, and cooperative learning was just one of the new learning strategies that we learned about in a great seminar I had attended just a few months ago. I was indeed prepared. I had plenty of experience - 18 years. I had “begun again” several times as our family moved with my husband's appointments. I had kept up with my education, taking classes and working toward ever higher degrees. My reputation as a teacher had always been good - respected by my students, peers, and principles, known to shoulder my share and more of the load, successful in meeting and exceeding expectations in the duties and responsibilities of a teacher.

Why, then, this sense of nervousness and uncertainty? Why couldn't I go to sleep, confident that I would be able to do again what I had done numerous times in the past?

1990?