On Second Chances and The Promise of a New Year

No matter how the year went, every year brings a fresh start.

Photo Credit: Unsplash

A few months ago, I heard a veteran educator remark that one of his favorite parts of a school year is the clear stop and start. You always know the year will end. You also always know it will start. With each ending comes a new beginning. Some years, your heart breaks when it ends. Some years, you’re happy to see the chapter close on another school year. No matter how the year went, every year brings a fresh start.

This past Friday I wrapped up my first year back in the classroom. I taught briefly before I had the twins and have often wondered what it would be like to go back. I am so glad I did. Teaching exceeded my expectations and in no small part because I loved my students.

But one of the saddest parts about teaching is saying “goodbye,” which you have to do with more finality if you teach seniors like I do. You get attached to these kids and then they leave you. Your heart expands to hold them and then they take it with them when they walk across that stage at graduation. But on the flip side, a great part about teaching is the fresh start every year. You get a new beginning, new ideas, and new opportunities to try again. This is especially helpful for a new teacher (or a teacher who is rusty, like me!) who ends a unit wishing she could have done a myriad of things differently. The good news is she can, next year. Messing up in one thing means you can try again next year on an entirely new group of students. You get a new year with second chances.

Students get that too. No matter what happened the year before, a new year is a chance to change your behavior, find a new group of friends, and even become a better student. Every year, students enter your classroom with a “record.” Teachers share background knowledge about previous years and experiences with your class roster before you even put names to faces. This is helpful but also challenging. If you want to give every student a fresh start, you must begin the year with a blank slate, or at least the belief that summer allowed for some maturity and new beginnings.

I told my students this year, whether I got them on Day 1 or Day 51, what happened before had no bearing on how I treated them in my classroom. When you walked through the door of Room 24, you got a fresh start. The same is true for when you walk in Room 9 next year (I moved rooms!).

Teaching affords many opportunities to expose our students to ideas, but one of the more formative lessons is that they can change. They get to start over next year. The person who ended the year doesn’t have to be the same person who starts the year next year. In other words, they aren’t immutable. Which is good news for student and teacher alike. We’re constantly growing and changing. Last year doesn’t have to define us. We keep moving forward.

So, I say goodbye to the 2024-2025 school year with a lot of sadness to see it end, but I also hold hope for what next year brings. I have more to say about teaching, and other things, as I write more in this space this summer. But I’ll leave with the encouragement that while we’re often in need of fresh starts, because of Christ, there are always new mercies waiting for us with the dawn of each day—for the teacher and the student.