Back to School!

Five ways we all can tap into our student within

By Maggie Catchick-Houghton

For me, the beginning of the year has always been in the fall, not in January. As a teacher I never kicked the school routine, moving smoothly from grade school to high school to college to my work, always with the change of colors and cooler air signaling the beginning of a new year!

Along with football games and school busses, come new supplies of crisp paper, pencils still smelling of wood, and every other supply you can think of from markers to sticky notes; folders to paperclips. And with it all, the promise of a new beginning, new things to learn, the potential of the new person we may yet become.

As a teacher I get to join in with the kids on their excitement at the new year, but as an adult I’ve also found great satisfaction in taking a moment to reboot, so to speak, and begin again. This is a time of year when we all can take stock and consider what goals we have yet before us, what changes we can work toward, and what ways to delve into the new things we’d still like to learn!

So these are my tips for Back to School and they aren’t just for students! I hope we all can find some new energy that comes from this time of new beginnings. 

1.     Appreciate the changes in nature. We are lucky in Michigan to have the best of all seasons, and the quickest changes will take place in the next few months! Don’t forget to get outside and enjoy it all from the last days of summer to the colors of fall and the excitement of the first snows. Taking some time for nature, no matter how much studying and work you have yet to do, is always a great way to recharge.

2.     Be sure you have the tools you need. Back to school is a great time for stocking up on those little necessities. These are the items that fill our need to create and organize, to be ready for whatever comes next. Use this time to get ready for the coming school year and coming winter as well. Get organized and feel prepared with what you need… just think what you might be able to accomplish!

3.     Open yourself to learning something new. The best part of school is that we get to discover new things we never knew before. But that doesn’t have to end with our school days! Consider something you’ve always wanted to learn or learn more about and get into it! The Cheboygan Public Library website offers the free Mango Languages program if you’d like to learn a new language; there are yoga classes and sewing classes; even starting a new fitness program or joining a bowling league might be an excellent way to fire up your brain by starting something new.

4.     Get ready to read! Reading is something required in most every level of school, but it’s easy to get out of the practice of reading when it’s no longer required in your life. However reading is an excellent way to calm and quiet your mind, improve your focus and concentration, and learn something new in the process. So, this fall, commit to finding something to read. Now that you are out of school and it is no longer required, there are so many options! Visit the Purple Tree bookstore to find a new novel or book that will teach you about history, philosophy or some country you’ve always wanted to know more about. Use the library as a resource to read about memoirs or genealogy, and maybe even as the inspiration to write about your own family history or your childhood. Read the newspaper and seek out articles online to become better informed about current topics relating to our upcoming election or foreign issues in China and Iran. “Assign” yourself a topic of study and then follow your research wherever it may lead you.

5.     Set goals for the new year. Every year my students begin with setting goals for their learning and their personal lives and that’s a practice we can all take advantage of as the students head back to school. Unlike January’s resolutions that are made and forgotten by March, goals are set with an intention of reaching some place new and have measurable standards that can be monitored as we go. Your goals may involve getting healthy or spending less, but should be marked by clear guidelines you can monitor such as decreasing how many times you eat fast food or the amount you spend in certain routine situations. You can set goals for how many pages a week you will read or how many miles you will walk. Goals may extend to how much time you spend with family and friends or even keeping a gratitude journal to be mindful of your blessings each day. Setting goals and monitoring them each day or week can bring about a great sense of accomplishment. Before long we begin to find our new practices become routine and we have indeed grown and changed who we are, maybe not in a big way, but bit by bit. Just as we grew in our education each school year. It’s never too late to grow a bit and learn something new. And that’s why each fall we all need a little “back to school” to get us ready to learn again.

published in the Mackinac Journal, September 2015