I'm not sure how to break this news, but, um...
I might be coming back next year.
The worst thing about being a cluster teacher in my first year was that I was totally alone. I shared my office with another cluster teacher, who has been very kind to me, in the library with the librarian, who is also very nice, but I was still the only one of my kind. I didn't have common preps or lunch with other teachers on my grade because I didn't have a grade. Planning meetings about math or reading at faculty meetings and grade conferences weren't relevant to me because I didn't teach math or reading. My mentor never mentored me, and there was no one I could ask for advice about my position because it had never existed before and no one thought to tell me what to do with it.
But since I've been assigned to second grade AIS, I've felt more like I'm potentially part of a team. The other AIS teachers have welcomed me ("I hear you're joining us next year!") and so have the second grade teachers ("Hello, fellow second grade teacher!"). In my mailbox today I found a 2008-2009 TCRWP (Teachers' College Reading and Writing Project) curriculum calendar for second grade, addressed to "All Classroom and AIS Teachers," something I never would have gotten my hands on as a writing cluster teacher. Suddenly I felt the warmth of recognition: Someone actually thought to put a relevant document in my mailbox! I exist!
I already know the vast majority of kids I'd be servicing next year, and on the whole they're a good group. I would work with a group of no more than eight students at a time, and as a push-in teacher I would rarely be in the classroom alone (no more getting in the middle of fights between eight-year-olds). I would get really, really good at teaching reading (is there a better story in the world than the daughter of a librarian growing up to be a reading teacher?). I would, for the first time, get to go to all the professional development sessions that all the other teachers always get to attend (not that they're necessarily so fantastic, but at least they would give me some idea of what on earth I'm supposed to be teaching). I would get to see my students from this year -- all 425 of them -- grow and learn and change. And I might finally feel like part of a team: the second grade team.
And the truth is, I have gotten better at my job; I've gotten calmer, I've gotten smoother, and I've gotten stronger. Everyone does say that the first year is the hardest, that you have to stick with it. Maybe...I should stick with it.
Showing posts with label cluster teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cluster teaching. Show all posts
Friday, May 23, 2008
Thursday, September 27, 2007
164 more days to go
Today I quit my job.
Mentally.
About eighty times.
The upside to quitting my job mentally is that I'll still get paid tomorrow. The downside is that I still have to go to work -- mentally, physically and emotionally.
Before we commence with the misery, here's a quick overview of the curriculum plan followed by my school, where we conduct reading and writing lessons according to something known as the "workshop model." The workshop model looks like this:
OK, yeah, that's not exactly how it's working out. The mandate from administrations says: Follow the workshop model. I have oodles of issues with this, including:
Mentally.
About eighty times.
The upside to quitting my job mentally is that I'll still get paid tomorrow. The downside is that I still have to go to work -- mentally, physically and emotionally.
Before we commence with the misery, here's a quick overview of the curriculum plan followed by my school, where we conduct reading and writing lessons according to something known as the "workshop model." The workshop model looks like this:
- Each period is 50 minutes long.
- Each period begins with a 10-minute "mini lesson" conducted by the teacher, which consists of multiple parts: Connecting the lesson to something the students have already done; introducing the "teaching point" for the day, which is outlined in very specific language that always includes the word by ("Good writers use correct punctuation by ending each sentence with a period"); modeling the teaching point; actively engaging the students in trying it out; and then sending them back to their desks to write for 35 minutes.
- Students write on their own for 35 minutes while the teacher "conferences" with individual students.
- The lesson concludes with a 5-minute "share" and review.
OK, yeah, that's not exactly how it's working out. The mandate from administrations says: Follow the workshop model. I have oodles of issues with this, including:
- Some kids hate writing. Sad, but true. They are not happy about having an extra period of writing. Behaviorally, this is challenging. I hear whining, I hear sighing, I hear outright defiance -- and I don't get to play fun games like "Capital vs. Lowercase!" (which went over pretty well with my second graders) because they're supposed to be writing. Again.
- Some kids hate writing. Sad, but true. They are not happy about having an extra period of writing. Mentally, this is challenging. A lot of them use half the period just thinking of an idea -- and by then, I'm literally wresting the paper out of their grimy hands because I have to run off to another class. Because I only see them once a week, they don't get to continue it another time -- and if my lesson is "Good writers use correct punctuation by putting a period at the end of a sentence," like it was today, and I'm in a first grade class, like I was today, some of them won't even get to the end of a sentence by the time class is over.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Mondays are manic
On Mondays, I see in this order:
In that case, today was the first day of the fourth week (although it's only the first day of the second complete week) of school, and here are some things I still do not have:
1. keys to the library (where my office is located) or the bathroom
2. control of my classes
3. a faculty mentor
I've mentioned before that I find this "mentoring" business to be a little backwards. When it's the first week of school, and you have kids in your classes that outright refuse to do a single thing you say, and children are hitting each other right in front of you and stealing your stickers, that's when you need a mentor for guidance and a good sob session.
Last week, the teacher who was supposed to be my mentor became the literacy coach and told me she wouldn't be my mentor anymore. Today, I saw her in the hallway. "Miss Brave," she said. "I still have to mentor you."
I still have to mentor you? Alas, that doesn't sound promising.
Lastly, because the subtitle of this blog is supposed to be "teaching, learning and surviving my first year in education," not "teaching, learning and complaining my first year in education," here are some good things that have risen out of the ashes of my first month of school:
- a self-contained special ed kindergarten (9 kiddos with a wide variety of special needs; I see them first thing in the morning and therefore they tend to trickle in one or two at a time as the bus drops them off, all yawning from the weekend)
- a self-contained special ed fourth grade (see League, Way Out of)
- a third grade class that's on their third teacher so far this year (yes, their third in three weeks of school)
- an ESL first grade whose teacher always comes back five minutes late from her prep, thereby making me late to my next class; there is probably a picture of this class in the dictionary under The Class That Wouldn't Stop Talking, Ever, and Never Listened to Their Writing Teacher
- an unruly second grade whose teacher I am convinced dislikes me; today on my way out I heard her say, "Writing is over and now you follow the rules that you always follow" -- as if I hadn't been trying to make them follow any rules, like, throw me a bone here
In that case, today was the first day of the fourth week (although it's only the first day of the second complete week) of school, and here are some things I still do not have:
1. keys to the library (where my office is located) or the bathroom
2. control of my classes
3. a faculty mentor
I've mentioned before that I find this "mentoring" business to be a little backwards. When it's the first week of school, and you have kids in your classes that outright refuse to do a single thing you say, and children are hitting each other right in front of you and stealing your stickers, that's when you need a mentor for guidance and a good sob session.
Last week, the teacher who was supposed to be my mentor became the literacy coach and told me she wouldn't be my mentor anymore. Today, I saw her in the hallway. "Miss Brave," she said. "I still have to mentor you."
I still have to mentor you? Alas, that doesn't sound promising.
Lastly, because the subtitle of this blog is supposed to be "teaching, learning and surviving my first year in education," not "teaching, learning and complaining my first year in education," here are some good things that have risen out of the ashes of my first month of school:
- being on the receiving end of spontaneous hugs from some of my students
- comments like "I like it when you come to our class" (these comments are usually totally unwarranted, by the way, since as I have done nothing but futilely strive for silence for 50 minutes, I don't really merit a compliment)
- passing classes in the hall who wave furiously and whisper, "Hi Miss Brave!" in their hallway voices
- so far, all my classes have laughed at my demonstration of how a sloppy lowercase M looks like a "big McDonald's M"
- working one-on-one with a kid and watching as something clicks
- two teachers (one first grade, one second grade) who are always really nice and gracious when I come to their classes
Friday, September 21, 2007
Freaky Fridays
On Fridays, all of my classes are really, really challenging behaviorally. I see a mixed general ed and special ed kindergarten class, a chatty first grade class that includes a student who by rights should be in a 12:1:1 self-contained special ed class, and two second grade classes that are, well, a little out of control. One of them is more than a little out of control, and if I were their teacher (who is also new), possibly I would have actually quit by now instead of just thinking about it every time I end up crying in the school bathroom. (See the list of ten things I was worried about before school started.)
I was pondering my situation the other day, and I came to the realization that the best schools have two pieces that fit together when it comes to how they treat their teachers: accountability and guidance. With accountability, they hold teachers responsible for what they teach; they make sure each teacher goes through her mandatory observations; they expect teachers to collect data and perform assessments on their students. With guidance, they provide their teachers with the tools that are necessary to do their jobs: New teachers have mentors; there are people who can answer questions; there are supports in place, and there are curriculum resources at teachers' disposal.
My school has plenty of accountability; I know this because the most common refrain I hear when I scrounge for advice is, "You should find out _____ before you get observed" -- this last part always dropped to an ominous whisper. But the one thing no one has been able to tell me is: Well, who do I ask? Who's supposed to be guiding me? Where is my mentor? (The teacher who was supposed to be my mentor is leaving her classroom to become the school's literacy coach and announced, "I'm not going to be your mentor; someone else will." But who? I'm still waiting to find out.)
My position is new, so I'm pretty much forging my own path. My thoughts at the end of the day range from "I wish I could quit right now" to "maybe at the end of the year I'll be glad I had this experience" -- but so far I haven't thought, "I think I'll want to do this again next year." I know it's my responsibility to take initiative and reach out -- but when I see 17 different classes and I feel like there's nobody in the world checking in with me to see how things are going...I get a little overwhelmed.
At the end of the day today I walked into the office and another teacher said to me, "Your job isn't changing, is it?" And I said, "Uhhhhh...I don't think so..." but I was thinking, Well, nobody tells me anything, so who knows?
I was pondering my situation the other day, and I came to the realization that the best schools have two pieces that fit together when it comes to how they treat their teachers: accountability and guidance. With accountability, they hold teachers responsible for what they teach; they make sure each teacher goes through her mandatory observations; they expect teachers to collect data and perform assessments on their students. With guidance, they provide their teachers with the tools that are necessary to do their jobs: New teachers have mentors; there are people who can answer questions; there are supports in place, and there are curriculum resources at teachers' disposal.
My school has plenty of accountability; I know this because the most common refrain I hear when I scrounge for advice is, "You should find out _____ before you get observed" -- this last part always dropped to an ominous whisper. But the one thing no one has been able to tell me is: Well, who do I ask? Who's supposed to be guiding me? Where is my mentor? (The teacher who was supposed to be my mentor is leaving her classroom to become the school's literacy coach and announced, "I'm not going to be your mentor; someone else will." But who? I'm still waiting to find out.)
My position is new, so I'm pretty much forging my own path. My thoughts at the end of the day range from "I wish I could quit right now" to "maybe at the end of the year I'll be glad I had this experience" -- but so far I haven't thought, "I think I'll want to do this again next year." I know it's my responsibility to take initiative and reach out -- but when I see 17 different classes and I feel like there's nobody in the world checking in with me to see how things are going...I get a little overwhelmed.
At the end of the day today I walked into the office and another teacher said to me, "Your job isn't changing, is it?" And I said, "Uhhhhh...I don't think so..." but I was thinking, Well, nobody tells me anything, so who knows?
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Wednesdays are wacky
Wednesdays are my all-kindergarten day. My schedule on Wednesdays looks like this:
1. prep
2. self-contained special needs kindergarten (8 kids, all of whom have special needs)
3. inclusion special needs kindergarten (16 or so kids, about half of whom have special needs)
4. kindergarten I am actually getting to know a little bit
5. lunch
6. ESL kindergarten (24 or so kids, all of whom are just learning English)
7. ESL kindergarten (ditto)
As you can imagine, Wednesdays are a little exhausting. Keep in mind that my certification is not actually in any of the specialty areas of (1) the kindergarten grade, (2) special needs or (3) ESL. Strike three! I'm out!
What's sad is that the kids in their second week of school already know more about their writers' workshop than I do. While I was having them choose paper (and don't even get me started on how I got verbally bitch-slapped for not bringing my own paper to provide for my seventeen classes a week when other teachers had expressly reassured me that there was no need for me to bring my own paper) and work on their own, one of the kids pulled out a date stamp. A little girl at his table, who's clearly Extremely Bright and in actuality would probably teach the class better than I would, calmly said to him: "You need to put that away. The teacher didn't say anything about using the date stamp, she only said to get a piece of paper and a pencil and write your name." In response, I just sort of gaped at them, because that's exactly what I would have said had I not been pre-empted and also paralyzed by my fear of kindergarteners.
I see both special needs kindergartens twice a week. For writing. I "co-teach" the inclusion class with a special ed teacher who is there to modify my lesson for the special needs kids (quotation marks to indicate that what I actually do is say moronic things in front of 5-year-olds and she interrupts me; she is also one of those people who is really hard to get a read on when you're talking to her, so I can never tell whether her questions are actually designed to insult me or not), and yesterday while the kids were "working independently" (quotation marks to indicate that they were actually in varying stages of throwing tantrums, fighting with each other or trying desperately to get my attention by waving their papers in the air and calling, "Teacher! TEACHER!!!"), she turned to me and said bluntly: "Kindergarten doesn't need a writing cluster." Making her the third teacher to tell me that my position in the school is completely superfluous.
Lady, you don't know how much I completely agree with you, but does either of us have enough clout with the administration to break it to them?
1. prep
2. self-contained special needs kindergarten (8 kids, all of whom have special needs)
3. inclusion special needs kindergarten (16 or so kids, about half of whom have special needs)
4. kindergarten I am actually getting to know a little bit
5. lunch
6. ESL kindergarten (24 or so kids, all of whom are just learning English)
7. ESL kindergarten (ditto)
As you can imagine, Wednesdays are a little exhausting. Keep in mind that my certification is not actually in any of the specialty areas of (1) the kindergarten grade, (2) special needs or (3) ESL. Strike three! I'm out!
What's sad is that the kids in their second week of school already know more about their writers' workshop than I do. While I was having them choose paper (and don't even get me started on how I got verbally bitch-slapped for not bringing my own paper to provide for my seventeen classes a week when other teachers had expressly reassured me that there was no need for me to bring my own paper) and work on their own, one of the kids pulled out a date stamp. A little girl at his table, who's clearly Extremely Bright and in actuality would probably teach the class better than I would, calmly said to him: "You need to put that away. The teacher didn't say anything about using the date stamp, she only said to get a piece of paper and a pencil and write your name." In response, I just sort of gaped at them, because that's exactly what I would have said had I not been pre-empted and also paralyzed by my fear of kindergarteners.
I see both special needs kindergartens twice a week. For writing. I "co-teach" the inclusion class with a special ed teacher who is there to modify my lesson for the special needs kids (quotation marks to indicate that what I actually do is say moronic things in front of 5-year-olds and she interrupts me; she is also one of those people who is really hard to get a read on when you're talking to her, so I can never tell whether her questions are actually designed to insult me or not), and yesterday while the kids were "working independently" (quotation marks to indicate that they were actually in varying stages of throwing tantrums, fighting with each other or trying desperately to get my attention by waving their papers in the air and calling, "Teacher! TEACHER!!!"), she turned to me and said bluntly: "Kindergarten doesn't need a writing cluster." Making her the third teacher to tell me that my position in the school is completely superfluous.
Lady, you don't know how much I completely agree with you, but does either of us have enough clout with the administration to break it to them?
Friday, September 7, 2007
Despair: 1, Miss Brave: 0
Things that would probably make my teaching experience a heck of a lot more bearable:
1. a key to my office
2. a key to the library, where my office is
3. a key to the bathroom, for Pete's sake, I was not meant to hold it all day
4. kindergarten writing paper
5. first grade writing paper
6. second grade writing paper
7. a curriculum (i.e., a reason for my existence)
8. a staff member I could ask about all these things without feeling stuuuupid
9. the mentor I was promised all new teachers would receive; now is the time I need her, not January when all this is just a bad memory
10. my health benefits to kick in so I could get some Prozac or something
Things I always suspected I would dislike about teaching that I do, in fact, dislike about teaching:
1. feeling isolated from everyone over the age of 8
2. the sense of crushing despair I feel after unsuccessfully attempting to implement every single be quiet and stay quiet signal known to teacherkind
3. the sense of crushing despair I feel when I try to comprehend the enormity of differentiating instruction for the second graders who can barely write their own names
4. having so much planning to do outside of school
5. behaving like an ogre to wriggly, chatty small children who don't get a gym class who are behaving like wriggly, chatty small children who don't get a gym class
6. school politics
Things I dislike about being a push-in cluster:
1. Frantically running from class to class
2. Working with about 350 kids so there is zero chance I will really learn all their names (classroom teachers: where are the nametags that are supposed to be on their desks?!)
3. Having to carry my own supplies from place to place
4. Not having any of my own supplies to carry from place to place
5. Not knowing what any of the regular classroom routines are and thus being unable to implement them with any consistency
6. Seeing each class for only 50 minutes a week: all of the challenges of teaching with few of the rewards that come from getting to know a group of kids really well
7. Not bonding with any other teachers on my grade level
8. Being viewed with less respect, authority and adoration by the kids
9. When the classroom teacher needs to step in and tell her kids to shape up because they're not behaving for me; the word "embarrassed" comes up frequently in this situation, when really I'm the one who's embarrassed
10. Realizing that the only thing worse than being in the "challenging" classrooms for 50 minutes would be being the full-time classroom teacher
Today was a tough day. Over the past few days I've gone from thinking, "I can't do this for the rest of my life" to "I can't do this for more than a few years" to "I can't do this next year." Today for the first time I thought, "I can't do this at all."
My kids aren't violent. They aren't dangerous. Most of them aren't even openly defiant. There are teachers out there who are getting injured by their students on a daily basis, who face exhausting, hellish conditions every day, who don't have any supplies or desks at all. There are teachers out there who are facing ineffectual principals, illegal overcrowding, and hostile work environments. There are teachers out there who would probably kill to work at a school like mine. Those are the teachers who make me think: I'm not thick-skinned enough for this. I'm not tough enough for this. I'm not dedicated enough for this.
I like working with kids one-on-one and in small groups. But teaching to the whole class -- it's getting to me. There's the pressure to make sure everyone is listening, all eyes are on me, no one has their hands on anyone else. What behaviors do you nip in the bud? What behaviors do you choose to ignore in a futile attempt to pick your battles? There's the pressure to address the needs of 25 individual students in one 50-minute period. How much time do you spend with the kids who are busy writing away, and how much time do you spend with the kids who are staring blankly at their empty sheet of paper?
My 50-minutes co-teacher told me that at the end of her first year, the principal suggested that she re-think her choice of teaching as a career. Five years later, she's still teaching at our school. I'm not strong-willed enough for this, I thought; if at the end of my first year, someone tells me to re-think my decision to teach, I'm going to re-think it. Then I realized that someone already has. During my disastrous first student teaching experience, my cooperating teacher's parting words to me were: "Don't teach first grade."
I thought I had something to prove here. But what if I just made a terrible mistake?
1. a key to my office
2. a key to the library, where my office is
3. a key to the bathroom, for Pete's sake, I was not meant to hold it all day
4. kindergarten writing paper
5. first grade writing paper
6. second grade writing paper
7. a curriculum (i.e., a reason for my existence)
8. a staff member I could ask about all these things without feeling stuuuupid
9. the mentor I was promised all new teachers would receive; now is the time I need her, not January when all this is just a bad memory
10. my health benefits to kick in so I could get some Prozac or something
Things I always suspected I would dislike about teaching that I do, in fact, dislike about teaching:
1. feeling isolated from everyone over the age of 8
2. the sense of crushing despair I feel after unsuccessfully attempting to implement every single be quiet and stay quiet signal known to teacherkind
3. the sense of crushing despair I feel when I try to comprehend the enormity of differentiating instruction for the second graders who can barely write their own names
4. having so much planning to do outside of school
5. behaving like an ogre to wriggly, chatty small children who don't get a gym class who are behaving like wriggly, chatty small children who don't get a gym class
6. school politics
Things I dislike about being a push-in cluster:
1. Frantically running from class to class
2. Working with about 350 kids so there is zero chance I will really learn all their names (classroom teachers: where are the nametags that are supposed to be on their desks?!)
3. Having to carry my own supplies from place to place
4. Not having any of my own supplies to carry from place to place
5. Not knowing what any of the regular classroom routines are and thus being unable to implement them with any consistency
6. Seeing each class for only 50 minutes a week: all of the challenges of teaching with few of the rewards that come from getting to know a group of kids really well
7. Not bonding with any other teachers on my grade level
8. Being viewed with less respect, authority and adoration by the kids
9. When the classroom teacher needs to step in and tell her kids to shape up because they're not behaving for me; the word "embarrassed" comes up frequently in this situation, when really I'm the one who's embarrassed
10. Realizing that the only thing worse than being in the "challenging" classrooms for 50 minutes would be being the full-time classroom teacher
Today was a tough day. Over the past few days I've gone from thinking, "I can't do this for the rest of my life" to "I can't do this for more than a few years" to "I can't do this next year." Today for the first time I thought, "I can't do this at all."
My kids aren't violent. They aren't dangerous. Most of them aren't even openly defiant. There are teachers out there who are getting injured by their students on a daily basis, who face exhausting, hellish conditions every day, who don't have any supplies or desks at all. There are teachers out there who are facing ineffectual principals, illegal overcrowding, and hostile work environments. There are teachers out there who would probably kill to work at a school like mine. Those are the teachers who make me think: I'm not thick-skinned enough for this. I'm not tough enough for this. I'm not dedicated enough for this.
I like working with kids one-on-one and in small groups. But teaching to the whole class -- it's getting to me. There's the pressure to make sure everyone is listening, all eyes are on me, no one has their hands on anyone else. What behaviors do you nip in the bud? What behaviors do you choose to ignore in a futile attempt to pick your battles? There's the pressure to address the needs of 25 individual students in one 50-minute period. How much time do you spend with the kids who are busy writing away, and how much time do you spend with the kids who are staring blankly at their empty sheet of paper?
My 50-minutes co-teacher told me that at the end of her first year, the principal suggested that she re-think her choice of teaching as a career. Five years later, she's still teaching at our school. I'm not strong-willed enough for this, I thought; if at the end of my first year, someone tells me to re-think my decision to teach, I'm going to re-think it. Then I realized that someone already has. During my disastrous first student teaching experience, my cooperating teacher's parting words to me were: "Don't teach first grade."
I thought I had something to prove here. But what if I just made a terrible mistake?
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
My first first day
...because tomorrow may be just as challenging, but at least it's not the first day!
My first day. It wasn't fantastic, but it wasn't miserable, and since I feel like I'm teaching in a vacuum it's hard to say whether I'm in trouble or whether I'm just being hard on myself.
First there was the unanticipated schedule change; my afternoon kindergarten class was (surprise!) switched with a special needs second grade class. I wasn't expecting to teach second grade today, and I wasn't expecting to teach this particular second grade at all. OK, I thought; you hear about this happening all the time, this is your first big challenge, roll with it.
It was a little rocky. I'm definitely thinking Too Big at this point, and I need to scale back my lessons, big time. They say that on the first day, you should over-plan...by which they mean "have more things ready for students to do," not "try to make students accomplish a project that's beyond them." I have 50 minutes with them, once a week, and I think I've been wildly over-optimistic about the things I'm going to be able to accomplish in that time. I still don't have a curriculum to follow, nor is there any sign that I'm going to get one, so I need to be proactive and write my own...and it definitely needs to be less "think conceptually about how you feel as a first-grader and then write about it" and more "first-graders put spaces between their words when they write." Today was the first day, so I tried to make with the big introduction, and it kind of fell flat. Memo to Miss Brave: Think small. After all, it is called a mini lesson.
I take comfort in the fact that I'm not the only new teacher who looked just the slightest bit shell-shocked at the end of the day. When you watch a great teacher teach, it all looks effortless, and then when you're up there yourself, it's like your brain is screaming a hundred different things at you: Have the supplies ready! Can all the students see? Should I reprimand that student who's looking a little unfocused? Don't be fumbling to reach those markers! Firm up the tone of your voice! And because I'm rushing from class to class, keeping one eye on the clock and trying to do the time in my head is really hard. I'm sure every teacher can tell you that things you think are going to take a long time happen really quickly, and things you think should be quick take forever. And it's not like I can steal a few minutes from the next subject if I want to; I have to be out of there and ready to go.
I'm still on a cluster-teacher seesaw. Sometimes I think, Further along in the year, this is going to be pretty sweet! No matter how challenging each class gets, I'm outta there after 50 minutes. I have all these extra prep periods. I don't have to worry about attendance, fire drills or all the other paperwork the classroom teachers have to deal with. Other times I think: I am never going to learn all of these students' names, and they're never going to respect me as much as they do their classroom teacher. The classroom teachers are going to judge me as a teacher when I'm in their rooms, and at least they have a curriculum to work off of! And I'll always feel a little bit lost about my place in the school culture. And even more troublingly, I think: I don't know if I want to be doing this next year.
But there's something about teaching that keeps teachers coming back. I never would have thought that after my disastrous student teaching experience, I'd be back in a classroom. I read and hear teachers' countless complaints about their profession, and then I see them return year after year anyway. And all the things that challenged me today are things that, in time, will improve...I hope.
At the very least, I'm going back tomorrow
Troubling anecdote: One of the students on my roster of small-group after-school students was a no-show. His classroom teacher pulled me aside and whispered the reason: Last week, his mother killed him and then killed herself. "He's not here. He's dead," she said flatly. There are no words.
Hopeful anecdote: "YOU DID A GREAT JOB! even if you did a shitty one, you're doing a great thing, and thus deserve to be congratulated." --Inspiring words from my friend Catherine. Thanks buddy!
My first day. It wasn't fantastic, but it wasn't miserable, and since I feel like I'm teaching in a vacuum it's hard to say whether I'm in trouble or whether I'm just being hard on myself.
First there was the unanticipated schedule change; my afternoon kindergarten class was (surprise!) switched with a special needs second grade class. I wasn't expecting to teach second grade today, and I wasn't expecting to teach this particular second grade at all. OK, I thought; you hear about this happening all the time, this is your first big challenge, roll with it.
It was a little rocky. I'm definitely thinking Too Big at this point, and I need to scale back my lessons, big time. They say that on the first day, you should over-plan...by which they mean "have more things ready for students to do," not "try to make students accomplish a project that's beyond them." I have 50 minutes with them, once a week, and I think I've been wildly over-optimistic about the things I'm going to be able to accomplish in that time. I still don't have a curriculum to follow, nor is there any sign that I'm going to get one, so I need to be proactive and write my own...and it definitely needs to be less "think conceptually about how you feel as a first-grader and then write about it" and more "first-graders put spaces between their words when they write." Today was the first day, so I tried to make with the big introduction, and it kind of fell flat. Memo to Miss Brave: Think small. After all, it is called a mini lesson.
I take comfort in the fact that I'm not the only new teacher who looked just the slightest bit shell-shocked at the end of the day. When you watch a great teacher teach, it all looks effortless, and then when you're up there yourself, it's like your brain is screaming a hundred different things at you: Have the supplies ready! Can all the students see? Should I reprimand that student who's looking a little unfocused? Don't be fumbling to reach those markers! Firm up the tone of your voice! And because I'm rushing from class to class, keeping one eye on the clock and trying to do the time in my head is really hard. I'm sure every teacher can tell you that things you think are going to take a long time happen really quickly, and things you think should be quick take forever. And it's not like I can steal a few minutes from the next subject if I want to; I have to be out of there and ready to go.
I'm still on a cluster-teacher seesaw. Sometimes I think, Further along in the year, this is going to be pretty sweet! No matter how challenging each class gets, I'm outta there after 50 minutes. I have all these extra prep periods. I don't have to worry about attendance, fire drills or all the other paperwork the classroom teachers have to deal with. Other times I think: I am never going to learn all of these students' names, and they're never going to respect me as much as they do their classroom teacher. The classroom teachers are going to judge me as a teacher when I'm in their rooms, and at least they have a curriculum to work off of! And I'll always feel a little bit lost about my place in the school culture. And even more troublingly, I think: I don't know if I want to be doing this next year.
But there's something about teaching that keeps teachers coming back. I never would have thought that after my disastrous student teaching experience, I'd be back in a classroom. I read and hear teachers' countless complaints about their profession, and then I see them return year after year anyway. And all the things that challenged me today are things that, in time, will improve...I hope.
At the very least, I'm going back tomorrow
Troubling anecdote: One of the students on my roster of small-group after-school students was a no-show. His classroom teacher pulled me aside and whispered the reason: Last week, his mother killed him and then killed herself. "He's not here. He's dead," she said flatly. There are no words.
Hopeful anecdote: "YOU DID A GREAT JOB! even if you did a shitty one, you're doing a great thing, and thus deserve to be congratulated." --Inspiring words from my friend Catherine. Thanks buddy!
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