New Crop

Let's pretend I looked like this as I ran copies on a ditto machine my first year of teaching.

A new crop of 7th-graders arrived at my classroom doorstep a couple of weeks ago. This is my 19th year of greeting 7th-graders and my 29th year of teaching. Some things have changed over the years and other things have stayed the same.

Here are a few changes over the years.

Technology. No surprise on this one. Twenty-nine years ago, I was entering student grades by hand in a big red grade book. Report card time meant dragging out the calculator and entering each grade by hand and finding the average, student by student. I apologize, retroactively, to any student who did not receive the grade they may have deserved. My accounting skills are weak at best. Now, a computer program not only calculates all the grades but it enters them on the report card which is run automatically for all students. I am in calculation heaven.

Copy machines. My first years of teaching involved a ditto machine. A mysterious, albeit fun to sniff, fluid was poured into a machine that looked like a rolling drum. An inky master copy was clipped to the drum and a hand crank was used to spin the drum until the desired copies were made. Master copies were milked to the last drop, often involving a little squinting by the wee ones as the master finally faded away. Today, our copy machines are personal secretaries. They staple, three-hole punch, collate, enlarge, shrink and sing a little tune. I am not really exaggerating much on the last one. Our latest copier can be programmed to make all sorts of sounds, from xylophones to new age, while copying. I will not reveal how much perverse pleasure my department gets from selecting annoying sounds.

Chalkboards. Teachers of days gone by know what it was like to have chalk dust all over our clothes and hands. I had little helpers bang the erasers on the sidewalk occasionally in an attempt to reduce the chalk buildup. Despite our best efforts, chalk continued to float in the air. Now we use dustless markers on whiteboards and stylus pens on our SmartBoards. I can save a computer file with all my lesson information, notes and graphics for as many years as I need them. A fabulous time saver, not to mention my students don't have to decipher my sad handwriting.

As amazing as the changes have been over the years, there are also some things that never change.

Kids. Sure, they now have a fifth appendage called a Smartphone and their communication styles have morphed over the years, but when it is all said and done, kids are kids. They just want to belong and feel valued. Middle schoolers, particularly, don't want to be too different from others. Style is everything and an internal drive is pushing them toward autonomy. Parents, new to the teen scene, shake their heads and wonder what happened to their babies.

Teachers. My mother was a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse over sixty years ago. She often shares stories from those days. No surprise that she faced some of the same struggles as we do today. Unruly students, curriculum challenges, budget constraints and long hours dogged her as well. What hasn't changed is the passion for a career that is more than punching a clock. We love what we do. We love watching kids learn. And we love hanging out with other folks who also believe in the power of education.

Here's to a new crop of kids. May the harvest be bountiful.