Monday, August 29, 2011

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.

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