S is for SEPTEMBER

For teachers, September and inevitable are uncomfortable partners in the same sentence. As the sun sets on the last dregs of August, the lengthening shadows of a new term begin to settle overhead and you tend to become resigned to your fate. Now before you start to become irked by another moaning teacher, let me say that I've heard it all before. The long Christmas and Easter holidays, only working until three o'clock, starting at nine, a break at Hallowe'en, more days off in February and all the bank holidays that everyone else gets. Why even one of our governors talks about how things are done in the real world! That, no doubt, wouldn't be the world where you constantly try to motivate at least twenty members of the public at the one time in front of you from nine until three, when a good percentage of those faces are motivated by anything but work, where lunch break sometimes extends to almost ten minutes and where the opportunity to work without the freedom of interruption, like most people experience, only begins after they've gone and remains open-ended. Still, someone has to teach the real world's children. But enough of this moaning.

I actually like the start of a new school year in September, when all those new uniforms dander in through the gates that have been close for two months, linked to their mummies and sometimes daddies. It's the season for digital and video cameras, son's first day at primary school, daughter leaving home for the first time on her own. And they all look perfect angels! Inevitably (there's that word again) there are quite a few tears, but usually after mummy has stopped crying and the P1 teacher has managed to assure her that she will take good care of her little darling, the big people who shouldn't be there can be ushered out the door, waving goodbye and leaving a trail of water drops all the way to the car park. The children? Well they mostly just get on with it, having waited over four years to get to school, nobody is going to deny them an education whether it be in the dressing up corner, the sandpit or with the Lego. So as the month wears thin, visits to the classroom by Mr. or Mrs. parent become less and less, secure in the knowledge that 'in loco parentis' also means going the extra mile. For my part, I get to know the new faces when they arrive for lunch in the dining hall and can often recognise a resemblance to a brother or sister further up the school, but I probably won't have much more real contact with them until they arrive at my door seven years later wanting me to complete their primary education. But with each passing year, it seems only a short time ago that they were entering through the gates for the first time.

There are so many new things to get used to in those first few weeks. Routines to follow, new friends to make, the school bell, bigger children in other classes, a noisy dining hall, milk at break time,different toys, paints, stories and computer games. And there are rules to be obeyed. Sometimes for a four or five year old, that is the biggest change as they come to terms with the rules that keep them and everyone else safe and sometimes it takes more than a few weeks, but by the time they are knocking on my door they have become old hands at the game. I often get my children to write stories for the first years and to go down and talk to them, because they know better than anyone what it is to be the new kids on the block.

The decision to follow Jesus may be an instant one, even allowing for months or years of pondering beforehand, but even though I can then call myself a Christian, I am not the finished article, for there is so much to learn. As I step through those open gates for the first time, I know I'll make mistakes, will get things wrong because it's so different to what I've known and all new, but I also know that there are many who have already passed through before me and they'll help me to understand better as I learn, and as Peter says, 'Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.' Also because I want to learn, it's easier to say goodbye to what I've left behind. And my Teacher doesn't take any holidays.