Confidence, The School Bus and Taking the First Step

We went through the drill.

Retracing our footsteps from both Wednesday's Open House and our quiet Thursday night visit to the empty middle school, we talked through bus drop off, locker location, homeroom and the 3 classroom periods. The lunch routine will vary from elementary school but she had the basics down: hop in a food line, make healthy choices and remember your lunch code. Find your lunch buddy, grab a seat and sit down to eat.

Homeroom #801, Language Arts #818, Math #814, Art #675.

Two elementary schools converging onto 1 middle school and 350+ 5th graders walking alongside those from 6th through 8th. One common area with 4 classroom wings, separate but together, curious but not really all that interested in anything but finding friends from last year and <maybe> getting to homeroom on time. 

What should I do if the teacher is not by the bus? Not by the lockers? Nowhere in site? Head for the homeroom kid, that's where she'll wind up. But, but, but . . . no worries, you'll be wonderful. A little nervousness is natural but there's nothing to fear.

I know you are ready for this. You are much better equipped for this than I was. Your goals are to make a new friend. My goal when I was your age was to not make eye contact with any one. Yes, really. What? Are you laughing at me? Does it make you feel better? Good. That's what I am going for.

Now, put on your confidence clothes, grab your back pack and let's hit the road. The first step you take onto the school bus this morning will be the biggest step you'll take today. You've got this one kid. It's all down hill from here.

Comments

[Steve Boese]

Love this piece. I am sure she did fantastically well on the first day of 5th grade!

[Jacob Weinfeld]

Great post! Thanks for sharing.

[Lisa Rosendahl]

Steve, so tell me, how did the 5th grader on your end do?!

Jacob, thanks for visiting!

[Deirdre]

So, how did she do? and how did YOU do? :)

[Rick]

It will be amazing to look back at this experience 3-4 weeks later, and realize how it isn't such a big deal in retrospect. It usually helps build up everyone's confidence level with a reminder of how successful they were able to manage a new, high-anxiety situation that will carry forward throughout the school year. (Also, try to remember this example because the same situation will happen again at the start of high school).

[hr consulting]

You did very good post here about your school visit. Ans you wrote true experience about school. It happen some times.