The preparation for a new semester is not only stressful for students, but for teachers as well. The students and teachers both face the anxiety of starting something new.
Typically, students will get ready for the new semester by emptying out their old semester binders, purchasing new materials, and preparing themselves to be in a new environment with new people, curriculums, and teachers. For some students, making a connection with their new teacher and classmates is the most nerve wracking part, causing a lot of stress and anxiety.
“It makes me nervous to think about if the teacher will be bad or rude to their students. I also think the class itself could be a real challenge, and meeting new people, as well as having a lot of homework to do once I leave the campus,” said Rose Apollonia, a junior at Leesville Road High School.
From a student’s perspective, teachers do not usually seem as anxious as the students are when they first start a semester. This is not true. “Getting to know the students makes me most anxious, and I don’t like looking out at thirty-two new faces and not knowing any of their names,” said Susan Duncan, a chemistry teacher here at LRHS.
Once teachers teach their new students for the first couple days of the new semester, however, they get a taste of the class will be like as a whole. Teachers then come up with a plan to either change their style of teaching or walk into the classroom with a different mindset.
“When I first meet my students, I want them to know that they can do anything in life if they work hard. A lot of people think chemistry is difficult and that they can’t do it, but they can if they just work hard and keep up with it!” said Duncan after she met with her new classes just three days of the new semester.
A positive thing about starting the new semester is that the students and teachers get to look back on mistakes they made from the previous semester to improve themselves for the new one.
“One difference I plan on making this semester is to put in more technology and incorporate that more,” Duncan said.
