Back to School

In Colorado, it is that time again...all of the kid's are going back to school soon! As I write this, my youngest daughter is sitting on the family room floor getting her school supplies ready and putting them in her backpack. She will be entering middle school this year, so for one short year, both girls will be at the same school again. This also means that all of the teachers go back soon, and that means me.

I am getting so excited and looking forward to meeting all of my new students and starting out another fantastic school year. It seems, that in 5th grade, the entire first half of the year goes into working on building relationships: the students with each other, the students and me, and the parents of the students with me. Then the second half of the year, we all reap the benefits of this hard work. I work in an area of town that many students are not too familiar with something called a marathon, because they have other things to worry about besides the luxury of running shoes. And yes, that is a luxury. So last year I decided to introduce the concept of a marathon to them. We have a small, gravel path behind our school that measures .10 - and my students were given a log to record their 262 laps as they ran them. When they completed their goal, they received a medal and a certificate of completion. Many of them wore their medals around proudly. I look forward to doing this program again with my new class.

Sharing my joy of running is natural. They all share their lives with me, so I find it exciting when a student tells me they are going to try track or x-country when they go to middle school. I hope to not just pass on my love for running to one or two students, but to give them a tool that builds their confidence and tells them that if they are capable of setting a goal to run a marathon, they can do anything.