Closed Chapter

I said my farewells to my wonderful first grade class and co-op at St. Joseph School. I could write a sappy post about how sad I was, however, I decided I want to write about the most important thing I learned from my teacher.

"Use thumbtacks when putting up bulletin boards."

Seriously. Do this.

Within my first few weeks at St. Joe's I was putting up my very first bulletin board. I would staple everything on, step back, analyze how crooked everything was, pull out the staples and repeat.

Finally after 3 or 4 times of doing this she came out with a container of thumbtacks. She taught me the greatest lesson of putting everything in place with the thumbtacks and then you have the freedom to rearrange anything that's crooked. I must say that this decreased my time exponentially.

This lesson applies to more than just bulletin boards.

I learned to never think of your plans as "permanent". There is always something that can alter what you had in mind to do. Whether it be a fire drill in the middle of a science experiment, a 2 hour delay or a technology meltdown, there are always going to be variables in your plans. Be flexible. There is nothing you can do about those challenges you will face. Be open to moving around your daily schedule or weekly schedule at that. This will save you a lot of aggravation if you go in with an open mind. I learned in my 7 months at this school that there was not one single week, not one, that everything that was written out in my teacher's plan book was accomplished as it was "supposed to be".

I'm looking forward to the new lessons I will learn from my new co-op.

Onto Salem Elementary!!