The start of a new year...

"You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him discover it within himself." -Galileo Galilei
And so it has begun!!  The first week of the new school year has been completed!  It's amazing how summer just suddenly ended and I wasn't ready for the first day, and yet, after the first week it's back to the natural swing of things.
We're really lucky this year to have such a great group of new students.  It's always sad when I lose a bunch of my favorites to graduation.  We never know what types of kids we're going to get the next year.  Last year we got a HUGE influx of new students.  They were young, mostly freshman and sophomores, which for us, means they are GROSSLY immature.  Immaturity and behavior issues in an alternative equals continual drama.  This made for a VERY long year... very exhausting, to be quite honest.
BUT, this year we have a great group of students.  So far, with few exceptions, the students are very hard-working and REALLY want to succeed in school.  I know that it's only the beginning of the second week, and there is still PLENTY of time for students to cause me grief, but my hopes are high for many of these students.  I think this will be a great year!!
My only hesitation still has to do with the district changes, BUT I've decided since I can't change anything right now, I'm going to do my best to accept the changes and roll with the punches.  We can find out what works and what doesn't and make changes based on that.  No reason to stress over something I can't change.  It reminds of one of my favorite quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson... a nice reminder that we just don't always have control of things, but we can find a way to move on:
"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."