Make Way for Baby
By Peter Barnes

Great news! My wife and I are expecting our first child, a baby girl, in early November. On top of that, my teaching partner is due in December. Oh yeah, and four other teachers on our fifth grade team had babies this summer and fall. Believe it or not, our team will produce one baby a month from July until December this year. I think the phrase "too much of a good thing" was invented just for this situation.

Staying focused
I love babies, but being surrounded by pregnant women certainly presents challenges. Since January, our team lunch conversations have focused on ultrasounds, maternity clothes, breast pumps and other pregnancy topics. We used to go out for team happy hours and get together for Euchre nights. Now most of the team is home and in bed by 8:30. I've noticed that on some school days the subs outnumber the full-time teachers in our hallway.

My greatest challenge this year will be staying focused on my classroom. I am thrilled about our baby's arrival and I think being a daddy will be one of the greatest experiences of my life. Teaching is my job, however, and the 24 students who are in my classroom deserve my personal best.

Sticking to the basics
It would be easy to accept mediocre teaching as my best effort this year. I will have many excuses: sleepless nights, a sick infant, a new daddy infatuated with his daughter. I hope to rely on these excuses as seldom as possible. Yes, I will take more days off than before and I will certainly be working on less sleep, but I still want to be a top-quality teacher.

To achieve this goal I plan to stick to the basics. This will not be the year I start an after-school program or write a grant proposal. I will cut down on my school obligations and concentrate on my classroom. My energy will be directed at the following three principles:

• Create solid and meaningful lessons.
• Be caring toward my students.
• Set high expectations for academics and behavior.

If I worry only about these fundamentals, I will feel less overwhelmed.

Relying on the team
I know it will be a demanding year for me and for the fifth grade team. We will have to rely on one another for support and push ourselves to be successful teachers. I hope we'll look back on this school year and laugh about how crazy it was. What I don't want is for my students to look back at their fifth grade year and think of it as a waste of time.

Peter Barnes teaches fifth grade in New Albany, OH.