Well, I finally have it.
I've sort of had mini-versions of it twice already this
summer, but last night The Nightmare attacks.
Not a bad dream, and hopefully not a premonition. The Back-To-School Nightmare.
This year I am starting off with the kids in groups. I know darn well that it's okay to have two
boys and two girls in the same group, creating a symbiotic 2:2 ratio, but it's
not okay to have a 1:3 ratio. I haven't
created my seating charts for each class yet, but it's something that won't
take long. It's a little trickier than
having the kids sit alphabetically by rows, and, since I only know a few of the
kids already (which is not necessarily a positive point for them) and not all
of them, I'm not sure who blends with whom.
But I'm going to try it, anyway.
I'm also not entirely certain what I'm going to do that
first day after going over the syllabus.
I usually have everything planned, but this year I'm not so uptight
about it all. As a matter of fact, I'm
feeling pretty relaxed about things, which is why The Nightmare catches me off
guard.
The Nightmare starts out with me arriving at school, but
it's not really my school where I work now.
It's more of a combination of my school and the school I went to for
first and second grade until the new elementary school was finished. Anyway, I am walking across the campus
expecting a full day of meetings. That's
what we do the first day (in Non-Dream Land) -- no kids, just endless droning
and chattering of various speakers telling us stuff we already know, don't care
to know, or will forget before we've even left our seats to move onto the next
meeting.
Instead of meetings, in The Nightmare I am greeted with the
panic of, "What do you mean you didn't know the kids were coming today? We changed it. First day is now for everyone. There are kids in your room already…." And I totally panic in my dream (nightmare)
because I realize I don't have rosters for any of my classes.
Now, I know where this evil dream is coming from. For our open house last week, which was
voluntary attendance, I met students who already had their schedules. The problem that day was that the teachers
had NOT been given schedules nor rosters yet.
So I had no idea if I were meeting my students or kids who just thought
I might be their teacher. The room
numbers are completely screwed up in our hallway: A1, A3, A8, A4, A5, A6, A7. My first year here I was assigned room A4,
tucked by the stairwell in the corner after A8, and I had a hell of a time
finding the damn room.
Back to The Nightmare.
I walk to my classroom and realize that I don't know the kids'
names. That's okay -- I'll wing it. They can sign their names to a piece of
paper. Of course, this being a nightmare
and all, there isn't any paper. Then we
run out of time, but the next class has too much time, I miss lunch because I
think it is a meeting day, and the school provides lunch the first day. In The Nightmare I forget this information.
I complain to one of the other Dream Land teachers, and she
berates me for not opening my email to read about the changes. In my dream-state, this comment manages to
aggravate the piss out of me because in real life I check my school email at
least once a day, especially during the week prior to the new school year, and
I'm dreamily insulted that I have been left off The Nightmare distribution
list.
To top off The Nightmare, my psyche has changed class times
on me, so I almost miss a class and I have one really short class and then one
realty looooong class where I cannot think of anything to do with the
students. I've run out of ideas. The Nightmare has …
Wait a sec. Wait just one goddamned second, here. Now I know for sure, even in my sleep, that
this isn't real.
I NEVER RUN OUT OF
IDEAS.
I wake up abruptly, look at the clock, and realize
ironically that on the real first day of school, it would be time for the alarm
to go off had it been set. This is the
official Back-To-School Nightmare I've been waiting for. In a way, it's a relief that it's over. On the flip side, it means summer is over, as
well.
Happy fall, all y'all.
Let the games begin.
