Back to School.....

                                                          


We (teachers) start back to school tomorrow.  No kids, just teachers scurrying around like mad things trying to get everything back in line before our reasons for being come back.

My room is a mess!  We used to have 4 early childhood special education classes in our building, 2 classes shared a classroom each, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, with a little bit of overlap.  My class is the first ECSE classroom for students with multiple disabilities to share a classroom with a less restrictive class.  So anyway, they split up the classes that were sharing classrooms, moved two to another school and shoved all of my equipment, materials and such into the other ECSE classroom. 

Most of my students stayed with me for another year, but I am getting two new students.  One family has already been in (last year) to observe me and my classroom and the other has not.  I cannot even imagine the amount of courage it takes for these parents to send their very young, non verbal and probably physically fragile child to a brand new person in a brand new place.

I feel the weight of these parents worries.  I am afraid I will make an inadvertent mistake and frighten these parents into thinking I am not paying enough attention to their child.  I don't want that to happen.  I want them to feel as though their children are with people who will care for them exactly as if they were our own children.  In some respect, I actually pay more attention to my students than I did to my own children.  After all, this is my job.  I also hope that they will know that I will feel a real affection for their child and will want their child to be the very best he or she can be.  That's a lot to expect of a parent, though.