First Year Update

So I pretty much stopped using this halfway through the year.  Hopefully, I'll be able to start back up as a SECOND year teacher in a few months.

A quick update: It was a tough year to say the least, and I was going through a lot.  I'm trying to move past the events of my time this first year and to look on the positive side - which is hard right now.  I left my school in March and it was one of the toughest things I've had to do (besides endure certain nameless people at my school for the other 6 1/2 months) but I just wasn't happy.  I hated my coworkers for the issues we had and my heart wasn't in it.  Then, of course, I hated myself even more for feeling that way and feeling like I had failed let everybody down (myself included) in some way.  I still feel that way to some extent, regardless of what my parents, friends, and prior principal/teachers said.  I'm trying to stop using the word "failure" to describe the past year or so, because I know I learned a lot, and so did those kids (gosh darnit!) And I know what happened was for the best.  Now the tough part is - I don't have a job lined up yet!  It's hard, because I've gone basically my whole life saying "I want to be an elementary school teacher" - literally... I found a worksheet from 1st grade that said that I wanted to teach - and now everything's up in the air.  I know I just have to keep pushing through it and things will get better.  I kind of feel like my confidence is shot.  I keep saying to myself, "Maybe it was all your fault." "What happens if you start over at a new school and the same thing happens?" "You're not good enough to do this as a career." I guess I just have to keep trying and know that God wouldn't put me through something I can't handle.  Whether ultimately I find another teaching job or not, I have to bounce back.  I can handle this... right?

P.S. I hate to do the whole "spew your feelings and have a pity party because it's a blog" thing, and that wasn't my intention... but I'm going to keep this.  It's how I feel right now and I want to be able to look back on this when things get better. :)

Whooah, we're halfway there! Livin' on a prayer!

Well... at least halfway through the first QUARTER.  Does that count?

(I'm going to make this short, because it's just past 8 and I need to go to bed.  No seriously.)

I never thought it'd feel so rewarding to see a child doing work around school... That is, until what happened yesterday.

Seriously, what kind of child HANGS UP THE PHONE when his teacher is using it?!  I was trying to call the office about his behavior and he hung up the receiver...  Like that's going to make you in LESS trouble?!

I know this probably makes it sound like I'm a horrible teacher who has no control over her class, but trust me, it's not the first time something like this has happened with this kid.  But I still can't help but take it kind of personally - like I should be able to control it...

So I know I've been super behind on posting, but that shows you the kind of life I'm living - I'm dead tired all the time.  Maybe I'll write something real about my first (almost) half of my first quarter as a real-life teacher in the next couple of days.  That is, when I'm not preparing progress reports for my kids.

Sidenote: I knew progress reports were being sent out soon, because it's the 4th week of school.  What I WASN'T told (or reminded?  Except I don't remember ever hearing the exact date they were due...) was that they were apparently due TODAY.  At least, until... today.  (Although I'm told it's not a huge deal.)  Stuff like this is just one example of how I'm feeling every day of my life.  "Oh wait, I was supposed to do that?  Oh, I should have been doing that for the past 3 weeks?  In that case, I guess I'll try to catch up on all of it in the next day while ALSO preparing all my plans from scratch."  It's stressful, but I have to keep telling myself it's all worth it.  And I have to BELIEVE the people telling me I'm doing a good job, instead of assuming that everybody is secretly judging me (which I admit is quite hard for me).

And with that, I bid thee adieu and good night!

We're not in Kansas anymore...

So today started out like nothing I could have imagined... I was on my way to school, and had to stop by the grocery store to pick up treats for the kids.  And what do they tell me then?  There's a TORNADO that's touched down nearby, and it's headed in our direction!  I bought my snacks, and headed back to school.  Luckily, it was only another 5 minutes or so before I got there.  I entered the building, only to see a group of kids sitting against the wall, and all of the teachers in the hallway.  What's even crazier is that these kids didn't go to Greenwood - they weren't even in elementary school.  ALL of the buses had been informed of the tornado warning, and were required to pull over to the side of the road.  This particular bus was near my school, so they brought those kids into the building to keep them safe in case something did happen.

Once the tornado warning was over (which only took about 10 minutes or so), those kids left and our kids started coming in.  Mind you, I hadn't stepped foot into my room at that point.  My computer wasn't on, and of COURSE today was my day to take the 5th grade early arrivals.  Then, once my computer (finally) turned on, I couldn't open the folder for the video they were going to watch.

Once school actually started, most of the buses still hadn't shown up - I only had about 5 kids for the first 20 minutes or so.  Then things went relatively smoothly.  Until there was ANOTHER tornado warning.  We did the whole "line up against the wall covering your heads" thing, and the kids handled themselves quite well.  But of course the lunch schedule was messed up, which pushed back the specials schedule and the recess (indoor, of course) schedule.  By the time the kids cleaned up from recess, there was only about 20-30 minutes left before we had to pack up, so the entire last part of the day was a wash.

The crazy thing is, this hadn't EVER happened in almost 15 years (at least).  Having a tornado warning with the entirety of Lee County schools on buses???  Thank goodness there wasn't any real danger in the area, at least.

P.S.

It's a 3-day weekend!  I think 3-day weekends are a teacher's dream come true.  Unfortunately, it's my last day off for at least 2 months.

Miss Jones was tired. Miss Jones waaaassssss!

I will forever (or, at least for the next few days) have the Schoolhouse Rock song about subjects/predicates stuck in my head.  And it doesn't help that my grade level teachers keep bringing it up and changing the lyrics.  Hence, the title for this post.  But it's such a catchy tune!

So my first FULL week as an official teacher is officially... OVER!  At least in terms of the "teaching" part of it.  But I've had so much going on that I'm ALREADY behind on grading, not to mention I need to find a better way of organizing all my JUNK (I mean, my lovely paperwork and assignments)... PLUS, I'm seriously overdue for a severe overhaul of my apartment... Coming home and dropping stuff off by the door in the living room has not resulted in my putting it away - rather I now merely step over all the random crap to get to the door in the morning.

In terms of my confidence compared to the previous post... Let's say *slightly* improved?  Or was, before this afternoon.  There is this ONE boy, I swear it takes everything in my power not to yell at or just give up.  I think that, in addition to waking up super early and not being able to sleep as well last night, made me so exhausted.  I wasn't even thinking about how stressed out I should be (although that's a rare moment in time for me) and I started (you guessed it) breaking down.  I think it was just that "you have so many emotions and you have so many things to think about, but you're thinking about everything and nothing at the same time and you don't know what to do so your body freaks out" kind of things... But my grade level head happened to come into my classroom and noticed, and she walked me through some things.  So now I feel a little better.  Granted, I'm JUST as overwhelmed as I have been, but now it's more an "I have so much that I have to do before Tuesday" kind of feeling, as opposed to "I have no clue what's going on next week" kind of feeling.

So I'm doing it.  I'm a teacher - I have a CAREER.  Now let's just hope that I can make it through the other 40 or so weeks, and then some.

On a side note:  props to Schoolhouse Rock for their gender roles!  Mr. Morton was made way back in 1993, and there's a woman proposing. :)

Keeping up and keeping track

I feel like first year (and probably 2nd and 3rd year) teachers cry more getting home from their job than virtually any other profession out there.  As such, I've decided I'm going to keep track of the number of days I cry while at my job.  Total tally so far: 1.  And that's only since the kids have been in the classroom!  Include all the days freaking out about how I don't feel ready for this, and I've got a good 3 or 4 in there.

Okay, so I'm kidding about keeping track.  Kind of.

But I'm NOT kidding about the whole crying thing.  And what makes it worse (or maybe better?  I'm not really sure) is that today wasn't even a BAD day!  Things went okay.  The kids were a little bit rowdy, and I definitely need to work on some ideas for how to keep them under control at crucial parts of the day (especially a select few) but nothing actually happened!  The kids all really like me and seem excited, for the most part.  But just the stress of having to plan things from scratch is tough on me.

And I love love LOVE my grade level team - they're funny, super nice, have tons of experience... but they literally know what they're doing all day every day.  And I don't want to just copy their ideas, by any means.  But I feel like I don't know if I'm doing things right or not!  I do the lessons they say I should do, but how LONG they last, or the WAY I teach it... I just feel like I'm floundering.  Even though I have a plan and ideas for how I want the lesson to go, I just feel incredibly unsure.  And self-conscious.  Which is NOT a good combination when teaching.  Don't get me wrong, I'm fine in front of the kids, and overall I feel good about how my lessons have been going... I just feel like I don't know what I'm doing.  But that's what sucks... That's normal - It's how I'm SUPPOSED to feel.

The Top 10 Ways to (Not) Ruin the First Day of 5th Grade

The title for this post is inspired by a children's book I found while browsing online the other day.  (It's called "The Top 10 Ways to Ruin the First Day of 5th Grade" for those of you who care.)  Lucky for me my first day of teaching went off, somewhat to my surprise, with little to no issues.  Sure, there were the typical things that always happen when you work in education.  A kid decides they don't feel like doing the assignment you gave them, another needs your help because he's struggling to even READ the handout you gave the class, students decide to tell you at the LAST MINUTE that they aren't sure how they're getting home (Both problems which were resolved fairly quickly, thankfully).  A kid is a fairly constant distraction because he sneaked a Red Bull behind his dad's back this morning.  (Yeah - a 10 year old hopped up on ridiculous amounts of caffeine and sugar... You do the math.) You know, stuff like that.

And I can only say one thing for certain.  I am dead. tired.

Even though I had trouble sleeping (You know the whole "butterflies, nausea, freakout" that sometimes happens?  It hit me like a ton of bricks at about 11 pm when I was trying to fall asleep.) I woke up and got to school at 6:45 on the nose.  Yes, 6:45 AM.  For those individuals who think "Teachers get to leave their job at 3 o'clock, why should they complain?",  it doesn't happen.  12-hour days are a regular occurrence and, although today didn't quite hit that mark, it was close.  But when all was said and done, 10 1/2 hours later, I can officially say that I got through the first day of school unscathed.

And honestly, I was fine the entire day.  Until they had us go to the library for a staff meeting, that is.  Just the act of sitting, then standing 30 minutes later made me realized how utterly EXHAUSTED I was.  So for now, I bid thee farewell, eat dinner, soak my feet, run through everything for tomorrow one (or 2) last time, and sleep.  I'm just thankful that everybody got home at the end of the day and that this didn't happen: