7/26/24 - Friday Forget-Me-Nots by Jim Silcott

Photo Caption: Mrs. Dansack summer tutoring

Dear Our Lady of Peace Family,

If you have heard or used the expression, “I need a vacation from my vacation,” you will certainly empathize with me this week as I get back into full speed ahead at school.

The first question you may ask is “What in the heck is Silcott doing all summer?” Well, except for my vacation week my summer has been filled with cleaning up loose ends from last school year (hint: paperwork) helping to get the building in shape (hint: giving ideas and suggestions to Jenny Bryant and her crew), getting ready for this coming school year (hint: paperwork), working with our new assistant principal (hint: I don’t say “my assistant principal. I don’t own her!), and most important, getting to meet with our new Pastor, Father Tennant as he is my new boss!

On my week at the beach, I tried not to answer emails. The thing about emails however is that they don’t go away, they just hide inside your computer and, when you finally log on, they jump up at you like a needy household pet. “I’ve missed you. Please pay attention to me! You’ve been gone too long, and I need you!” This is not meant to make anyone feel badly who has recently sent me an email. It’s just that when you give them attention daily, they, like my dog Dock, are easier to handle.

On August 5th and 6th, I go to what is the highlight of each summer, the annual two-day principals’ meeting (hint: more paperwork). I get back from vacation, answer emails, put out fires, meet with lots of folks and start to feel as if I am ready to welcome students on August 21.

On the morning of each year’s meeting, I go into it feeling mighty good about all I have accomplished during the summer. And then the meeting starts, and continues, and continues and with each passing moment my to-do list which seemed all completed, fills up again. But hey, this is my 36th year in administration. I know the drill. I shouldn’t complain about the drill. Why does it seem then, that the experience of a dentist’s drill boring into an exposed nerve and these meetings seem awfully similar?

46 years ago this summer, I was sitting in my three room 15 bucks a week German Village apartment getting ready for my first year in education, as an English teacher at Bishop Watterson. I was assigned to teach sophomore honors American Literature, junior Western Literature and a typical seventies style course called modern short story. I spent many an evening after coming home in the early morning from working as a bartender at Deibels and, not being able to sleep, pondering the school year ahead, how the students were going to be, and what kind of teacher I was going to make. I sat at an old manual Royal typewriter and banged at the keys trying to create a syllabus that would carry me through at least the first couple of months. Paperwork was easy then- a single piece of white paper rolled into the carriage. No internet or even electricity needed. A small bottle of whiteout to correct my mistakes. When that first school year actually started, it took a heck of a lot more than whiteout to correct my first-year teaching errors. But I learned.



I love getting ready for a new school year. The planning helps, along with a positive and enthusiastic belief that the mistakes of the previous year have been contemplated and corrected in the quiet of the summer. And so, as I get back at it, my excitement for that first day when all the students come in the building (hint: all students report to school the first day!) I realize that although I am 46 years older, I am no less excited than I was then. See you soon!

Jim Silcott