New Year, New School, Same Me
By Skylar Primm, Educator
In the natural world, spring is a time of renewal. New shoots poke through the soil, leaf buds open on trees, ponds unfreeze, and torpid animals begin to stir. For those of us lucky enough to serve as K-12 educators in the United States, though, the equivalent time of renewal is late summer and early fall, a time when we refresh our classrooms, review our class rosters, and look ahead to a new year of purposeful work.
For myself and many of my peers, the end of the 2021–22 school year was rough, despite support from students, the community, and one another. The news has been full of reports of teachers leaving the profession early, which I won’t rehash here. Personally, just after school let out for the summer, I interviewed for and was offered a teaching position closer to home, and made the decision to take the leap. That’s why, in late August, I now find myself preparing to teach in a new school and a new district for the first time in over a decade. To ensure a more sustainable and joyful 2022–23 for myself and my students, this summer I’ve taken the opportunity to rest and recenter myself, and I’m looking ahead with excitement to the new school year.
A Summer for Healing
I’m a compulsive devourer of professional development, often overscheduling my summers before they’ve even started. This year, I tried to hold myself to a much more limited schedule, with only two major commitments. The Greater Madison Writing Project’s Teacher Leadership In Writing Yearlong Institute, which met for a week in late July, gave me plenty of time to reflect on my life up to this point, and my identity as an educator. With my GMWP colleagues, I’m planning to focus on growing hope in myself and my students in the year to come. The Human Restoration Project’s Conference to Restore Humanity, which took place online the following week, connected me with a broad network of educators who are likewise committed to student-centered teaching while maintaining our own physical and mental health as well. Both helped me rediscover my other professional homes beyond the classroom.
This summer, I’ve also had to say plenty of goodbyes to colleagues, students, and families — one builds a pretty broad community over 11 years in one place. None of those goodbyes have been easy, per se, but they’ve felt good. My former students and colleagues have all been so amazingly supportive of my move, and it’s been heartening to receive their well-wishes. At the same time, I’ve gotten to say a lot of hellos to new colleagues, and those have been positive experiences as well. I struggle with social anxiety, so all this recent social interaction has been a growth opportunity for me. I haven’t met my new students yet, but I’m looking forward to the connections I’ll build with them this year — which is, after all, my primary job as a teacher.
All through this summer of learning and relaxing, I’ve tried to take a both/and approach to thinking about this transition. I can both carry the past in my heart and look ahead to the future. I can both feel grateful for my new position and grieve the loss of my previous one. I can both feel proud of my accomplishments at my previous school and recognize that this is a good time for new leadership and fresh ideas. The practice of both/and thinking — for which I owe Alex Shevrin Venet a debt of gratitude — is a wonderful antidote to the-sky-is-falling downward spirals that stressful situations can push my anxious mind into, and it’s a practice I plan to share with my students, as well. Complicated emotions aren’t just for adults, you know.
A Fall for Growth
In the waning days of this transitional summer, I’m looking ahead to a school year in a new district, with new colleagues, new students, new expectations, new resources, new opportunities, and new struggles. Much about this year is still uncertain, but I’m also looking inward at the same me, and I know that I’m ready for the challenge. Productive struggle is the path to growth for students, and the same is true for anyone who is learning something new. (As always, what’s good for students is good for educators as well.)
Most of all, I’m looking ahead with a sense of hopefulness that I’ve struggled to locate in recent years, particularly since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. If I can maintain that sense of hopefulness by choosing joy and practicing both/and thinking when the hard times come, 2022–23 is going to be an incredible year.
Skylar L. Primm (he/him) teaches at Koshkonong Trails School, a project- and place-based learning school in Cambridge, Wisconsin. In 2017, he was the recipient of a Herb Kohl Educational Foundation Fellowship in recognition of his teaching, leadership, and service, and in 2021 he was named the Wisconsin Association for Environmental Education’s Formal Educator of the Year. He currently serves on the boards of the Wisconsin Association for Environmental Education and the Human Restoration Project, and leads the Wisconsin Teacher-Powered Schools Network. Skylar blogs at skylarp.medium.com, and you may contact him at pbl.skylar@gmail.com.
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