As I write I am on my last day of school before summer break. The seniors are looking forward to their New York trip, final exams for the rest of the upper school are scheduled for next week and graduation takes place on 26th.
I’ve really enjoyed my first year at MCA.
I asked if I needed to re-apply for next year?
“Oh no, we’ll keep you on payroll,” I was told by the principal’s assistant.
I feel rather like I would at the end of a vacation, wishing the final days would drag a little more, excited to be going back to a familiar home, but reluctant to leave this new place quite so soon.
I can’t get over how welcoming everyone was on my first day of nervous anticipation.
I was the only one among them who knew I had not set foot on a school campus since the year I graduated from London University, a long, long time ago…and then only for two weeks… (the students were a few years younger than me and uncontrollable, I walked out).
Everyone at MCA was a stranger to me.
Today I know all the graduating seniors, most of the juniors, some of the sophomores and am on nodding terms with a few freshmen.
Flowerbed in the Upper School quad
The teachers treat me as an equal.
Some students mentioned me in their senior video as their favorite teacher because of my British accent, my husband who used to be in a band and the cool stories I told.
“It seems they love me,” I told my girls.
“Of course they do Mum,” said Perripoppins and Daughts.
I’ve been asked,
“Isn’t it about time you went full-time?” by students and colleagues alike.
“Substituting is rather like being a grandparent,” I reply, “I can come in and ‘Wow’ the students for a day or two then hand them back to their classroom teachers.”
Not to mention no planning, or grading, detentions or disciplining.
“There’s no cause to dislike you,” my sons said, “they get the best of you for a few hours, then you hand them back.”
Wind blown rose
A couple of days ago I went to the final Upper School chapel led by the seniors, all of whom are college bound.
The campus pastor said that 80% of Christian students stop going to church when they leave school.
A daunting statistic, something worthy of prayer.
This afternoon I look around my classroom of twelve 18 year olds, respectful, God fearing young people ready to conquer the world,
Only 2.4 of these students are going to visibly continue their faith walk, I think, and murmur my favorite prayer for young people,
God our Father, you see your children growing up in an unsteady and confusing world: Show them that your ways give more life than the ways of the world, and that following you is better than chasing after selfish goals. Help them to take failure, not as a measure of their worth, but as a chance for a new start. Give them strength to hold their faith in you, and to keep alive their joy in your creation; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
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