Being a team player

As many teachers do at this time of the year, I am sitting here reflecting on the school year that has just come to a end. This one has been a challenging one for for me, but I have learned many lessons that I will take into my next years of teaching and help me grow even more as a teacher. Every year my class teaches me something different, this year it was how to be more patient, flexible and how to let things go.

My friend Kristy put it best the other day "what a unique job I have... take this little crew up kids in the fall and teach them and create a little 'grade one family' with them and fall in love with them and then have to say good-bye. Today is always a day of such mixed emotions!!!!".

While I teach Kinder and not grade 1, the message is the same. Take this group of  4 and 5 year olds, teach them how to be independent,  love school, print, read, count and the many other 100's of skills we work on during a year and then let them go 10 months later. How can I not feel a void when the year is done?

The one thing that has allowed me to get through the past 10 months is the amazing team that I work on. They are not only my colleagues, they are my friends. There to pick me up when I need it and celebrate the success with! In my years of teaching, I have been at a dozen schools and I will tell you that the staff I am on now is special! The tears that flowed as we said our good-byes yesterday were genuine and the words spoken came from the heart. As the people leaving stood up to speak, the words that kept being repeated over and over again were "I work with a great team of people". I don't feel like I go to work everyday, I go and spend time with great people - students, admin, parents and staff. Our principal Antonio Vendramin wrote it best last week in his blog It takes a village I am so proud to be a member of that village!