Ups and Downs

I lost a student this week. Her parents pulled her out of our school after just four weeks. They moved here from the States a couple months ago and for various reasons decided it was not working out for their daughter to be at our school. They are going to go back to homeschooling her. This was a pretty tough thing for me as much time and energy was spent helping her adjust to school and successfully transition academically. At the same time I will be getting a new student on Monday. Our school recently hired a new business manager. Him and his family just arrived late Wednesday night and I got a chance to meet them yesterday. His oldest son is in seventh grade and will start at our school on Monday. I just began thinking after talking with them a little yesterday that I need to get things ready for having this new student join us. I need to get a book out of the store room, a syllabus and info sheet ready for him, and figure out where he'll sit in my seating chart. Along with these things my seventh graders are taking chapter 2 test on Monday so I need to figure out what he'll do during this time and how to catch him up to the rest of the class as he's coming in two chapters behind. But then I am reminded that these are the ups and downs that come with teaching at an international school like BAIS. Students are going to come and go throughout the year, these are just the first of many more to come. Many of my students have moved a lot throughout their lives. Some families are already planning on moving at the end of the semester. I already have a list of students who will be joining us in January for second semester. The challenge is to embrace this flux and not loath it. If I do then the students will follow. Although perhaps my students know how to do this better than I do because many of them have done it their entire lives. Perhaps I have a lot to learn from them.