Maybe Next Year...

      The children entered the classroom wide-eyed and wondering.  They wondered about their teacher.  “Is she mean?  I hope she’s nice.”  They wondered about each other.  “Who’s the new kid?  Is Billy going to bother me for another year?”  They wondered about the challenges.  “Will this year be hard?  Easy?”  They wondered about themselves.  “Can I do it?  Will I fail or pass?”

      In spite of the questions the universal response as always was “This year will be different.  I will do better.”  Kids don’t go to school in the fall expecting to fail much less planning to do so.  School has a unique quality of annual freshness.  Like a sports season it has an annual beginning and end.  There is the hope-eternal pre-season potential for success.  Parents, teachers and students, much like Cubs’ fans, dream “This is the year we win the championship.”  Just as in sports only one kid rises to the top.   Unlike sports, however, there need not be winners and losers.  School is just that – school.  It is the perennial pre-season.  It is preparation for the future – adulthood outside of school.  Every student is a year older, hopefully a year wiser, and certainly a year closer to that future.  Their real championship game is yet in the distance.

      Kids don’t know that though.  The here and now of school is their life.  They live in the present.  They, like all of us, want a good life, a good school life.  They want to be “good,” but like their adult counterparts, they are beset with the challenges of living; and like the rest of us they don’t always overcome those challenges.  The issues of the larger world interrupt their school lives.  The present isn’t always quite what was expected.

      The school year is a long season challenging baseball and hockey to an almost interminable end.  There are hot and cold streaks, illnesses and injuries.  Kids lose their swing or rhythm.  There are the big games called tests and the pseudo-championship of the state exam; and today our schools are labeled winners or losers.  Sadly, at times so are the kids.  The end of the season awards assemblies recognize outstanding “players,” the final day of the season arrives, teachers and students pack up equipment and begin preparing for next year.

      The students have their scorecards.  Hope replaces the wondering.  “I hope next year’s teacher is nice.”  “Maybe Billy will move away this summer.”  “I hope next year will be easy.”  “I know I will do better next year.” They thank their teacher for lessons learned or unsatisfied with their performance, try to slip out un-noticed. 

      “Next year, you’ll see; I will be…”

      One of the wonders of school is that hope does spring eternal.           

      Maybe, next year…