A quick survey of the landscape in the Fletcher house: We have one starting high school, one starting kindergarten, one getting a head start on the terrible twos, and one joining the family in less than a month (Mrs. Fletcher is confident there are two). In addition, I’m doing my best to prepare for the coming year both as an administrator and a classroom teacher. In short, it’s a busy back-to-school season in our house – as it is in so many others. So how do we get ready?
Summer reading is done. We know how the kids will get to school each morning and have reasonable confidence as to how they’ll get home. We have backpacks and lunch boxes, as well as most of the items from our school supply lists.
On paper we look relatively well prepared. As in any good school, however, that which is of the greatest importance is often not found on paper…or in textbooks, lesson plans or state standards. When it comes to preparing for the school year ahead, the significance of one particular need far surpasses that of all others. As we take in the final days of summer and return to the world of academics, the most important thing to bring with us is enthusiasm.
As parents, it is the manner in which we send our children off to school each day that sets the tone for the experience they will have. As educators, it is the way in which we welcome our students into our halls and our classrooms that strengthens the eagerness and curiosity with which they enter them. As people of faith, that enthusiasm is affirmed by our commitment to the Catholic principles of peace, justice, equality, service and respect for all life.
If you send your children to school with nothing else on that first day, give them – model for them – an enthusiasm for the year to come.
~Mr. Michael Fletcher, Dean of Students
