Guess Who?

The first day has come and gone and I've discovered something in my second year. Kids are pretty darn similar. I mean really. I looked at this kid today and I almost called him Juan. He threw paper like the Juan I had last year. He snickered when I called him out on in it, he even spells like a third grader the way Juan did. His name isn't Juan, but it might as well be.

I was very attached to my students last year, but I'm finding it a tiny bit difficult to build up the same attachment this year. Last year was my first year. Everything was new and great and unbelievably hard and even though they drove me crazy, I adored my kids. This year I'm finding it a little harder to get so attached. I know that even though I like Cesar he is probably the source of my current spit ball problem. And even though Sarah is sweet I know she'll turn. I see it in her eyes. And then we'll go round and round and I'll call their parents and some days they'll hate me (and tell me!) and some days they'll think I'm the coolest thing ever. Then TAKS time will come around and we'll bond because we worked so hard. And some of them will leave me and some of them will make me wish they would leave. And by the end of the year I'll have a knot in my throat as I send them off to the eighth grade and I'll have forgotten — most of — the stuff that drove me crazy about them all year. See, I already know what's going to happen.

Perhaps I'm just being pessimistic. This way if all this stuff does happen then I'll still be sad to see them go and if instead I get surprised along the way it will mean even more because I wasn't expecting it.

Either way I've got to learn my non-Juan's name. He keeps tagging my desks.