Reflections...

Wooooowwww. I made it to Christmas Break, yall!! Can’t believe that half the school year is just about over. And I can’t believe that I made it this far and still have some sanity left. Seriously, dude… Wow.

If you’d asked me whether I thought I’d make it this far into my first year of teaching back in August or so when things were bright and shiny and new (hehe), I’d have said… definitely! If you’d have asked me a few short weeks later when the seriously foreboding sense of being incredibly overwhelmed and unprepared in my new job finally set in… well, that might have been a completely different answer. And now that a sense of normalcy is finally starting to settle in and I’m beginning to feel more confident and competent in what I’m doing, things are definitely looking up. I’m thinking forward, planning forward, looking at my data and trying to come up with more creative and effective ways to reach my kids and help increase their growth and progress.

With just one more week of break left to go, I plan to sleep even more, plan even more, and pour over the data I’ve collected thus far to see where the holes in my instruction lie. I’ve got to figure out exactly how I’ll go about reviewing our rules and procedures (a-gain) since the kids will have been out of school and away from those kind of expectations for weeks now, and I’ll also have to figure out how I’ll begin to slowly weave our district’s move to Common Core Essential Standards into what I’m doing now with the Standard Course of Study, to help ease the transition into Common Core next year.

I’ve got two more formal observations to go this school year, and then those will be done as well (Oh, bless God!!!). The first two went really well, which was a huge blessing.  I’ll still have more observations to get through from my lateral entry program, but I’ll think more on those as they get closer.

At this point, I think one of the heaviest things I’ve yet to get through is finishing up our upcoming Seminar sessions for our certification program. Three hours a night, two nights a month with reading and assignments and work products to boot begins to really weigh on you after a long day’s work with the kiddos, that’s for sure. Thank goodness there’s only like 8 or 9 more sessions to go. Nothing like a good ‘old countdown to make that mountain seem a little more bearable. Just 9 more sessions to go, and then no more work products, no more synthesis statements, no more Seminar sessions, no more Americorps requirements… NO MORE TNTP.   May 20th, can't WAIT to see you!!!

Nothing like a good vacation to rejuvenate you...

Break has been awesome. So restful. So, so restful. I’ve slept so much these past few days that I literally forgot what day it was once. I had to Google an online calendar and find the day of the week… Now to me, that’s a true sign of a great vacation.

The kids and I kidnapped my husband last Thursday (literally) and took him away on a surprise Christmas vacation to Myrtle Beach for a week. We already had his bags packed and the car gassed up before we picked him up from work that afternoon, and immediately hit the highway heading South before he could even think to ask why we weren’t heading straight home like always. I’d already gotten permission from his boss for him to take a sick day that Friday, so he was all set, although he didn’t know it yet. J

About an hour into the trip (and amid his increasingly serious questions of where we were going and how long it would take to get back home [thinking he had to go to work in the morning and needed to get some rest], the kids and I finally explained his surprise trip and that he’d been granted an early Christmas vacation by his job. He’d been so worn out, so exhausted over the past few weeks that we knew we had to do something for him – headaches every day, tired beyond reason, stressed to the max each day only to start the cycle all over again the next morning… working in customer service is no joke, for real.

So, we took him away. Away from the stress, away from the constant aggravation, just… away. Away to a beachfront apartment with a terrace overlooking the beautiful ocean, just steps away from strolling on the beautiful, calm, white sands of Myrtle Beach. Long Bay proved to be a nice place to spend this part of our vacation. We could literally hear the ocean waves coming in and going out, and feel the cool ocean breeze as we sat and watched from our balcony. Aaahhhhh, Christmas vacation… so, so, so glad you’re here!!!

Almost there...

Two more teacher workdays, and then Christmas Break, here I come!!!

Praise Him, Sis!!

"...it's beginning to look alot like Christmas..."

Well, it's about that time! Christmas break is almost here.

It's amazing to me how quickly the three weeks or so after Thanksgiving is absolutely flying by. Weeks have been shortened because classes are beginning their holiday celebrations, field trips are going on and everything is kinda rushed and relaxed at the same time. Yeah, I'm lovin this.

If the past week or so is any indication, I can expect this last week before break actually starts to just whir by like a vapor. I'm so looking forward to break it's crazy. Two full weeks of sleep, more sleep, and peace of mind too??? Oh, yeah... sounds awesome to me.

There is one thing that brings this natural high down a bit, though. Two of my students are moving away over the break, and I so don't want to see them go. These are great kids. Funny, kind, loving. The kids that you look forward to greeting everyday in class. And they're moving halfway across the country. Blah. I definitely wish them well. But I'll absolutely miss them, too.

It's funny how your class changes month by month in school.

When I got my class roster in August, I assumed I'd be with those kids for pretty much  the whole year, and once I taught expectations and procedures and all that teachery-stuff, I'd be good throughout the year. Yeah, no. My class roster has changed 3 times so far this year, for various reasons. I'm not complaining, 'cause I love my kids, old and new. But it does remind me of just how fluid things are and how quickly they can change.

Going through these changes also reminds me of how frequently I need to go over my rules, expectations and procedures during the school year. At the beginning of the year, the kids learned and practiced this stuff and after a few weeks, they had it down pat.  They'd come into class, see the Do Now on the board, get their journals and get ta'workin'. Then October hit. I don't know what it is about the month of October, but O-M-G. You seriously begin to wonder if your kids didn't drop their brains or something that morning because everything you've spent weeks and weeks teaching them is somehow just ... l.o.s.t.

"Oooohhhh, Teacher... you wanted me to whaaa?" and "Oh, yeah, that is a rule, isn't it?". Giggling starts in record levels and it's so hard to bring them back to any modicum of attention where you could actually teach a lesson...  Yup, October is testing time. Testing the limits, that is.

Good thing I'm up to the challenge.

And then comes Thanksgiving break. The Thanksgiving break you're jonesing for so much by the time it comes that you're literally counting down the minutes until dismissal the day break starts. And you go away and sleep (and sleep... and sleep some more) and rest and refresh, then you come back to school happy and excited and ready to keep closin' that achievement gap and you realize...

They've forgotten every single thing you've taught them.

So, you do it again. And again. You review your rules. You practice your procedures. You reiterate those expectations. And just when you've got them back in order and things are looking good and productive again, it's almost time for Christmas break.  Haaaaaaaaaaa!  You just have to laugh. Otherwise, it'll drive you insane. :)

So, while I'm busy now trying to get my planning done for the first 2 or 3 weeks of January (so that I can actually enjoy my Christmas break and not have to spend precious days of it pouring over lesson plans and exit tickets and assessments), I'm also working on creative yet effective ways that I can once again review our rules, expectations and procedures when we all come back. I used to hear this so, soooo much during Summer Institute that it drove me crazy, but now I see that they were right. Aggravating, but right. Every minute really does count. We have so much to do and those instructional minutes slip away quicker than you can turn your head, so the New Year will definitely bring some strong focus for me into using and protecting every minute of teaching time I can get with my kids.

Ahhhh... Refreshed!

I can't tell you how good it felt to be free. Actually free. Free to think, free to get up when I wanted, free to stay up as late as I wanted (without any freakouts about how tired I would be the next day with my kids), free to do stuff in the middle of the day and just free to enjoy myself and be me.

Oh, and the SLEEP. Oh, dear God.

I slept so much that first day or so that my family thought I was comatose. Good sleep to a teacher is like a pot of gold to a broke leprechaun. 

I traveled, I spent time with my family up North, I had peace in a way that I've missed for a very long time. And ... because I was finally well-rested and feeling 100%, my thoughts were clear and I could actually hear myself think. This vacation was an amazing blessing.

And here's the awesome part...

Christmas break is right around the corner.

I love my job!  :)

Ohhhh, Thanksgiving Break... How I Need Thee...

And the countdown has begun. Just two more 'official' school days till I will be (OMG!!!!) on Thanksgiving Break. And can I just say... I so neeeeeeeeeeeeed this time away.

I'm exhausted. I'm worn out, scraping the bottom of my energy reserve every day just to go in and have a 'usual' day of work... never mind those crazy, extra-heavy days when I have 2 IEP meetings plus a crazy-long Certification Seminar assignment due for TNTP plus lesson-planning to do plus, oh yeah, teaching my 3 different grade-level classes. All in one, eternal-feeling day. I literally cannot stay up past 8pm on Fridays, no matter how hard I try. My body is so worn out and my eyes just will not stay open because I'm so          overtired. Ohhhh. I so need this break - for sanity's sake, I need some time away.

I love, love, love what I do. But I'm so looking forward to reaching that place where I can feel like I'm actually on top of things, caught up and (dare I say, actually ahead on planning???) and have some energy left over to boot.

...I understand, Bruh... I understand...

Experienced teachers, please tell me it's somewhere on the horizon....

Dude... Teacher Workdays Rock!!!

I think I’m finally beginning to feel like – dare I say it – a real teacher. We just had our first official Teacher Workday the other day, and it was so relaxing, so peaceful to be at school and not have kids. Loved it. Looooovvved it. Got so much work done. I designed my new class tracker for the upcoming Quarter, cleaned, filed, did inventory, and a whole host of other things… all before noon. Wow. Yeah. I really like Teacher Workdays. J

It’s kinda scary to think that a whole Quarter has gone by already. We’ll begin the second one on Monday, which reminds me that we’re heading swiftly toward the half-way point of the school year. It was so cool to be able to track the kids’ progress these last few months, and see them get excited as they color in their part of the class chart to show how much they’ve grown on a particular objective or skill. I’m really getting attached to these kids. They make my day.

I have so many plans for this next quarter. So many things I’d like to try with them and teach them how to do. Question is… how to find time to do all this AND plan AND manage to have some semblance of a life outside of work with my family… there are just not enough hours in a day!

So this quarter, I’m thinking hard about starting an online Book Review page for the kids on our class website. They can do one a week in order to earn our class currency. I’m also looking into establishing a class blog, where the kids can start their own (on our secure webpage) and blog about things that interest them. I’m really trying to find interesting ways to incorporate technology into the classroom, and I figure these two would be a great start in that direction.

We’ll see how it goes!

A Note of Thanks

It’s hard being a first-year teacher. Simply put, it’s freakin’ exhausting. I mean like, bone-dead, whole-body-hurts, can’t-think-straight kinda tired. Somehow between making the decision to become a teacher and going through all the crazy training and preparation that this Certification Year has set up for me, my brain has turned to mush and I can’t seem to find the energy to rescue it.

I’m tired.

And what’s worse, it sucks to feel so isolated. I mean, you’re not only the new kid on the block at the new job, you’re also a brand new teacher who doesn’t know so much, who’s trying to feel her way through what sometimes feels like a literal jungle of gossip and criticism and people waiting to see just how much you really don’t know… and very few people put forth the effort to check up on you.

It’s like they somehow forget what their first year was like, what they went through, how they felt. It’s like they feel that, if they had to suffer through it alone, well… so do you. I see now such a rich opportunity for teachers who have been in the field for a long time (or even several years) to reach back to that first-year teacher on their hallway or in their learning community, and let them know they’re really not alone and that things really will get better.

Because, there are soooo many days when it feels like they won’t.

I wish I was on a hallway or location where there were other new teachers. Other people who are also going through their first year, who are also trying to learn the how-to’s and who could come together and help each other. Instead, I’m surrounded by (very nice, thank goodness) a bunch of experienced teachers who mean well and are very pleasant, but who are also trying to keep their own heads above water with all the massive stuff they’re supposed to get done in an already too-short day. So when I do make a mistake or forget a procedure or something, I end up feeling like a total idiot, which really sucks. Yay me.

This is when it really (I mean reeeeeally) helps to read the blogs of other novice teachers to see what they went through and how they navigated their way out of the quagmire that is first-year teaching. Fellow writers, your blogs give a ray of much-needed sunshine to those of us who are trying so hard to keep our heads above water while still managing to pull off some modicum of looking like we actually know a little of what we’re doing.

Thank you, fellow teacher bloggers. Thank you.

It's 'That' Time...

What is it that seems to happen to otherwise well-behaved children come the month of October? Is it the change in the weather, or perhaps the crispness of the cool fall air that causes them to GO HOGWILD??? We were doing so good. So, so good. Rules explained and taught. Practiced. Role-Played. Expectations laid out, clear, concise, kids following them and doing a great job, week after week after week.

Until now, that is. Something happened to them all today. Today, they all (ohhhh, just about all 25 of them or so) decided that rules were suggestions and that teachers were buddies who somehow understood  their sudden lack of restraint… After about my second class of chaotic-acting kids, I was pretty much exhausted and wondering what the heck happened to my classroom structure???

And then a funny thing happened. The weather cleared up and the October chill lifted, yielding a beautiful, springlike fall day. So I opened my classroom window. In wafted the sounds of happy children playing on the blacktop, enjoying the excitement of the soon-coming weekend. In also wafted the sounds of teachers – wonderful, hard-working, way, way more experienced-than-me teachers – who had finally had their fill of kids going haywire. I heard countless times as classes passed by my open window…”What is this? Why is everyone acting so inappropriately? This is not what you all were taught in our classroom!” … and “Excuse me, but did we just for-geeettt all our rules all of a sudden? You all know we don’t act like this! What in the world is going on?”

And suddenly, I began to feel better.

I realized that it’s not just because I’m a brand-new teacher who somehow must have failed miserably with the classroom management plan that I thought was working well up until now. No, I’ve still got lots of learning to do. But it’s not all me.

It’s just October.

They say hindsight is 20-20...

It’s pretty amazing that October’s almost gone already. I look back on things now and realize that, even in this very early part of my career, I can think of things I wish I would  ehave done, things I wish I’d have known before. Here’s just a few of them. Hopefully, this can help some other soon-to-be first-year teacher out there to miss some of the hurdles I’ve come across:

1.     I wish I would have known just how overwhelming this whole thing would be. I didn’t walk into teaching thinking it would be a cakewalk – I felt the opposite, in fact – but I had no clue just how crazy things get once school actually starts. There is a whole SLEW of things that come up once school begins – new requirements, workshops you’ve never heard of that you have to take right away, new responsibilities from literacy coordinators and Aps and just about everyone else you can think of, that need to be done, yep… right away

2.    I wish I would have known how much I would come to loathe my school email account. Before school started, I’d have like, 4 emails a day. Okay, maybe 5. Once school started, that number increased to easily 25 to 30… A DAY.  And once the workday officially ended, the night-emailers start and the number begins to slowly build to ANOTHER 25, 30, 35 for the next day.  And that's all well and good if they're simple, informational emails that don't add to your already incredibly overloaded 'to-do' list. These, however, add and add and add and ... add some more. Yay.

3.    I wish I would have known how quickly you’ll get sick from being around kids. Coughing. Snotting. Sneezing. No mouths covered. Dirty tissues that somehow seem to ‘miss’ the garbage can way too frequently. So far this year, I've lost my voice for a solid plus weeks, working at almost a whisper each school day, because of a cold I caught that just wouldn't seem to go away no matter what I tried. Two full weeks with absolutely no voice, people. And most recently, my unfortunate discovery of you can tell that a child is really, really sick (and soon to barf or worse…) from the thick cloud of uncontrollable gas that emits from a poor, incredibly embarrassed student. In just the last few days, there have been numerous students with headaches and stomach aches and fevers, flushed cheeks and all, going to see the nurse. Guess it’s just that season. Sick days, get ready.

4.    I wish I would have realized that there is very (v.e.r.y) little “getting yourself together” time in between classes. Like, none at all. You’ve got to have every class’ stuff already laid out (or in my case, ready to be laid out after you remove materials from the class that’s just leaving), or else you’re in trouble. There’s so little instructional time as it is already, and losing precious time trying to organize stacks of worksheets and papers and things between classes can be very costly.

5.    I wish I would have known that a glue gun and five cent glue stick would make just about anything stick to my classroom walls… before I spent $5 each on countless rolls of heavy-duty mounting tape, that is. Nothing I tried on these walls in the beginning of the year worked… staples wouldn’t go through the wall. Tape wouldn’t stick. Posters and even the lightest papers would fall down all the time. And then…Eureka… the daggone glue gun worked like a charm. Who knew???

6.    I wish I would have known that I would end up changing my classroom management system not even a full month into the school year. I cut up all that paper and got all those little pockets ready, only to realize that we never really needed that system anyway. By the end of September, I’d chucked that green/yellow/red card stuff in favor of a much more effective, more kid-friendly classroom economy system.

7.    I wish I would have known how much my back and shoulders would hurt from lugging home TONS AND TONS OF STUFF each night, in an effort to plan and try to get ahead … just a little…

8.    I wish I would have known how difficult planning would be sometimes. How much I would have to rely on the plans of gen ed teachers to know what my kids would be learning and when, so I could plan how to supplement for them according to their individual needs. So… if the grade-level teachers don’t make their plans until Sunday night, that means I don’t have what I need to plan my week until… Sunday night. And, that means I’m scrambling to put together an effective week of lesson plans for my kids… at the very, v.e.r.y. last minute. NOT fun.

9.    I wish I would have known that my Friday nights would essentially disappear. I foolishly thought that my workweek would end at quitting time on Friday, and I could then go, energized and excited, into beginning my wonderful weekend. Little did I know I would be so incredibly exhausted by 8:00 pm on Fridays that I couldn’t even keep my eyes open, much less try to go out and do something fun. Weekend? Yeah. Better play up Saturday and Sunday, bud, ‘cause Friday’s a wrap.

Stage Three...

Then the day comes when I finally have to do a real IEP meeting, a re-eval, and I realize how utterly incompetent I am at the job I’ve been hired to do. I mean, these people are paying me. Month after month. And I feel so incompetent that it’s not even funny. I sit through this meeting, and my mentor (thank God for her) literally has to run the meeting (my meeting) point by point and sentence by sentence because I don’t know what the heck I’m doing. I’ve read about re-evals. I’ve sat through workshops about them and really thought I understood what I’d need to do. Until I actually had to do one, that is. And it’s at this point that I just get pissed. I’m heated. Not at the people that I work with, not at my mentor or anyone who’s trying to be patient and help, etc. I’m pissed at the program that supposedly ‘trained’ me for this job. Don’t get me wrong… They taught me – drilled me, in fact – in the mechanics of writing a quality lesson plan. I can do backwards planning on a unit and do a daggone good job at it, too. Meaningful lessons connected to State standards, etc…. all that, yep, got it. What they didn’t teach me was anything specific about dealing with Special Education students. Not the book stuff – the real, everyday, this-is-what-you-do stuff. Like HOW TO RUN AN ACTUAL IEP MEETING with some semblance of competence!!!

I don’t know anything specific about any (a-n-y) of the categories of disability. I just know what the category names are. And yeeetttt… I’m a Special Ed teacher. I don’t have a clue on what the exact steps are (I mean exact steps you follow when you’re actually running the meeting and all the other participants are looking to you to know what the heck you’re doing so their time’s not wasted) to the different types of IEP meetings that you can have. And yet, it’s my job to facilitate.  I don’t know enough about my subject to be able to give the gen ed teachers help and suggestions when they ask for them. And yet, this is supposed to be my area of ‘specialty’. Wow. This is a joke. And what the heck was I thinking in taking this on anyway??? I should have gone to a Masters program specializing in this instead. At least then I’d come out prepared to actually, oh I don’t know… DO MY JOB???  (Can you smell the Disillusionment in the air?? And it’s only October!)

And then there's Stage Two...

Looking back, I can see how riding on this high took me through the first few weeks of school. Didn’t matter that I really didn’t know what I was doing, or that my summer training in no way reflected the situation I now found myself in. I was excited and flying high. I’d figure out whatever needed to be figured out and somehow, it would all eventually get better.

A few weeks in, maybe just three or four of them to be exact, I started to feel completely and utterly overwhelmed. I loved my kids. Loved, loved, loved my kids. But trying to find time to plan effectively for them day after day after day was increasingly seeming like an impossible task that I had no idea how I’d make it through. The first week out, I got an entire week of lesson plans done, had each class covered, and felt great. That kind of victory hasn’t happened since. I’m struggling at this point to figure out what in the heck I’m going to do with four separate groups (and grades) of kids for an hour that’s actually meaningful and will help them learn, versus just throwing something together that will actually ‘cover’ a total of sixty minutes until they leave and the next class comes in.

Sometimes it’s because in all of my planning and good intentions, I remember to bring home tons and tons of stuff from my classroom to help me with planning over the weekend, but manage to leave the very curriculum books that I specifically need to design the week’s instruction around… Really?? Augh. The best laid plans…  Other times, it’s because I don’t get the weekly email about upcoming grade-level topics and lesson plans from the gen ed teachers until Sunday morning… even Sunday evening, sometimes. REALLY??? And I have to find a way to put together a very effective, very meaningful week’s worth of lesson plans for this grade’s class in how many hours?? Tomorrow starts a new day… a new week… and I’m so, so unprepared for it. I absolutely hate feeling like I’m flubbing with time – just doing ‘fillers’ with the kids until the dismissal bell rings at 3 and I’m ‘free’ for the day, but on weeks like this, that’s exactly what it feels like, and let me tell you – it sucks.

AND THEN… I try to keep myself organized (as much as I can with all this craziness going on around me, anyway) and write out all (alllllllllllllllll) the things that have to be done, and check them off as I complete them, and looking at the end result just makes my head spin. My first week, my To-Do lists were like, one page.  Regular-sized writing and all, everything I had to get done basically fit on that one page and I found that I was crossing out completed tasks with some very comforting sense of regularity. Then the emails started coming. I open my school email during the first week of school and I have like, maybe 4 messages. Come week two, I’m at about 20+ A DAY. And each one of them is from someone new that I don’t know, telling me that I’ve got to complete some paper or training or whatever that I knew nothing about previously, and that was nowhere on my existing, already two-paged To-Do list. Literally, I get to the point where I don’t even want to check my school email during this time, because the demands that I find in there are just soooo overwhelming in addition to everything else that I already have to find a way to do. This is C.R.A.Z.Y. !!!!!

By weeks three and four, I had a To-Do list of a solid three pages, with even more things to be done written in the margins and on any other tiny spot of unused white space there might have been… and worse yet, NO CROSS OUT MARKS. Oh, my goodness…. Talk about feeling like you’re treading water??? At this point, I feel like I’m doing all I can, doing all I know how to do, and I can hardly keep my head above water. I’m getting up early and staying up late trying to get these things completed. I’m working all day with the kids and the moment I get home, instead of spending quality time with my family, I’m emptying out the never-ending contents of my massive teacher bags and trying to get stuff done – planning, online workshops, etc… and before I know it, it’s way past time to go to bed so I can get up and do the same thing all over again, tomorrow. When the weekend finally does come, I’m spending every single day of it pouring over planning materials, trying to work schedules and group divisions and reading levels, and it flies by so fast that I barely even realize how little time I’ve spent with my family in the interim. I look up and it’s already Sunday night, already time to get ready for a fresh week of this new dance that’s consuming my life, and I can barely remember even feeling like I ever had a ‘weekend off’ to begin with. Most times, honestly, I feel like I’m drowning in the river of stuff that has to be done (in ADDITION to teaching my kids daily), and I just don’t know if I’ll make it through this with any semblance of sanity.   Mmm Hmmm… This must be what they’re talking about when they mention the Survival Stage.

Stages of a New Teacher's First Year...

They say there are five stages to a new teacher’s first year: anticipation, survival, disillusionment, rejuvenation and reflection. Looking back on my experiences these past few months, I can definitely find myself somewhere in this continuum.

I can so easily remember being sooo excited, so elated even, about the prospect of being a teacher and of starting my training to learn the how-to of doing my job. Even though Institute was completely exhausting both mentally and physically, part of what helped me make it through was this excitement, this knowledge of the greatness of what I would eventually be doing. I would actually be touching lives… helping young minds to grow and stretch and learn that learning can really be fun…

So when my notice of hire came through, my level of excitement was just through the roof. I mean, I was on a serious high. Nothing bothered me, everything was possible, nothing was too hard – I just needed to look at it a different way to find the solution. No real orientation at your site? No problem – I’ll find a way to learn what I need to know. No access to your trailer? No worries! It’ll be worked out before you know it. Finally got into your trailer but it looks like a train wreck (literally and figuratively)? Not a problem. Nothing a little (or maybe a lot) of bleach and disinfectant and a broom and mop and scrub brushes can’t fix. Painting walls for days until your arms literally felt like they’d fall off if you took just one more stroke? Nooooo problem!! Got kids coming in another week or so! Gotta get it done!!!  Yeah…. Anticipation stage.

Treading Water...

Yet another week down and I still can’t believe how quickly time is just flying by. I can’t tell you how  g-l-a-d I am to say that today is Friday, and my weekend has officially begun. I don’t know what it is about teaching that makes me so very tired by the week’s end, but by Friday I’m ready to drag myself home, plop myself on my favorite seat on my favorite couch, and promptly not remove myself from that spot until Sunday evening. Seriously.  I’m exhausted by (and all during) the weekend. My day goes by like a whirlwind and before I know it, I look around and it’s time to go home. Both the week and the weekend seem to go by the exact same way. … too freakin’ fast.

The good thing is that I’m not feeling completely overwhelmed like I was when things first started. I can finally say that I am (kinda) getting the hang of my day and of my kids and classes. I’m finally trying to get to the place where I can map out two weeks of planning at a time. Haven't gotten thee just yet, but I'm working on it.  I also started writing out the next day’s info on my board the night before, so that when I come in in the morning, it’s already completed and I can actually take my first hour of the day and get those little things done seem to completely elude your memory until the last possible minute.

What I haven’t quite gotten a solid hold on just yet is figuring out how in the world I’m supposed to plan so much stuff for so many classes (I have 7 total, in 4 different grades) in such a short amount of time. Planning takes me a long time. At least quality planning does. I know some other beginning teachers that can put a lesson plan together in a sec – they’re goooood. Me? Well, I can put together some really good plans, but it can easily take me hours to do it – and that’s just for one class. I haven’t learned the art of quick lesson planning just yet, but I’ll get there someday, I guess.  J  For now, I try to keep my head above water and plan when I can, while trying to juggle trying to actually have some family time to speak of (and sleep would be nice, too).

...add to that unit planning, record keeping, observations, data tracking, and oh yeah... EOG prep...
where in the world is the time supposed to come from????

Planning time? WHAT planning time??

Can someone PLEASE explain to me how in the world teachers are supposed to plan so much stuff  WITHOUT ADEQUATE PLANNING TIME???? I guess I’ll never really understand this part of the job. The little planning time that we do get is such a precious commodity that you eventually come to protect it against interruption with the threat of death or completely intentional dismemberment… DO not mess with a teacher’s planning time.

As it stands now, I get three half-hour planning times per week. It never ceases to amaze me just how quickly that time goes by. Seems like as soon as I sit down at my computer (I have three in my room now, YAY!!!), pull up my Lesson Planning template and begin filling in just one block for one subject in a day, it’s already over and it’s time for me to get back to my schedule with the kids. Which means, pretty much, that my actual planning time ends up taking place at home when I’m supposed to be off work and spending time with my family. Which also means that my supposed 8-hour a day job has now transformed into a consistent 10 or 11-hour day  easily. No wonder I’m so freakin’ tired every night. Slowly but surely, I’m learning the lot of a teacher. This job entails some serious self-sacrifice, for real.

I’m getting better, though. I’ve learned to set up general files for the crapload of papers that comes your way every week – emails, memos, reminders, schedules, revised schedules, master calendars, changes to the master calendars, etc. Until I set up several folders to help me organize this stuff, my desk was literally crawling with stuff. Papers everywhere. Looking for a pen? White out? Masking tape? Yeah, sure… I’ve got it! Somewhere up under all that paper on my desk! Three weeks in and it’s finally starting to look like a neatly organized desk of a teacher. I’m getting’ there!  

Time's a-flyin'...

Can’t believe we’re through the third week of school already. This time has flown by incredibly fast – literally in a whirlwind.

Seriously, dude. For all those teachers who manage to get up before the crack of dawn and go take care of other people’s children all day, only to come home and take care of their own families and homes, manage to steal away a few hours here and there to plan for the week’s instruction and then STILL update their blogs faithfully… I salute you.

I’d read in so many blogs before I started this journey where first year teachers said that this was the hardest job they’d ever done in their lives, and many of them had come from the corporate world in various high-level capacities. Now, however, I understand. I love my job. I absolutely love what I do, and I’m learning an incredible amount each day. But God knows, I am SO BEAT DOWN TIRED when I get off work and finally drag myself home that I don’t know what to do. No amount of sleep seems to be enough. No amount of planning seems to be enough. The next day still seems to come way, way too fast and I wake up exhausted and worn out and (still) dragging my umpteen, filled-to-the-brim-with-teaching-stuff teaching bags with me everywhere I go.

Through of the written wisdom of so many other teachers before me, I took special care to dedicate the first week or two to teaching rules, procedures and expectations so my kids know what to do. I’ve gotten them to the point where they come to my class on their own (my groups in the trailer starts with 3^rd graders), enter the room quietly and look on the board for the Do Now. They know to follow the steps and get busy. That’s when I take attendance and get myself and my handouts, etc. together for the lesson that’s about to start. The Do Now usually keeps them busy for a good ten minutes, so it’s a nice breather for me everyday – especially when I’ve prepared ahead of time and have their handouts, books, etc. already set out. It’s not the kids themselves that are wearing me out – it’s the paperwork and the data collection and the feeling that I’m still just treading water that’s exhausting. Just when I feel like I’ve caught up and I have the opportunity now to actually – oh I don’t know – Get Ahead?? – that’s when even more work comes. Even more assignments. Even more data collection. Even more requirements. And that little advantage of time that I saw rising on the horizon just begins to sink down ever so slowly into the quagmire of being swamped.  

I carry so much stuff and paperwork and lesson planning material home every night, planning to take an hour or two and get some serious unit planning done, to organize my never-ending pile of freeflowing papers. So far, though, it just hasn’t panned out the way I’ve planned. My back and shoulders hurt so badly sometimes that I end up popping more IBs than I care to admit to stay the throbbing pain and soreness that inevitably ensues. And even in that, I still end up leaving something very necessary in my room at school. I still find that, when I’m finally home and in my sweats and tshirt and sitting on my favorite seat on the couch, that I’ve left that one piece of paper or memo or curriculum book AT SCHOOL and don’t have what I need to get all the work I planned to get done. And so we repeat the cycle all over again… I lug those extra heavy, overly full bags right back to school, only to fill them with still more stuff, making them even heavier. Yeah. It’s not fun. When I finally put my bags down, they land with such a loud THUD that it’s startling sometimes. Guess it’ll get better soon, right? J

Three weeks down... can't believe it!

This week (the third week of school) is when I begin to actually work with my own set of students. Remembering my training, I’ve already come up with the rules, consequences and rewards that I want to use, and I plan to use the first few days of the week (at least) to have the kids come up with our rules and things as a group. I read about a “Rules Workshop” in Bill Cecil’s book, Best Year Ever! Book.  Definitely gonna use that. Because I have actual students now, my daily schedule has changed big time. Gone is the free-flowing flux time that I’ve had for the last few weeks. Now, my day is scheduled into blocks of time with each grade level, with very little ‘transition’ time in between. It’s all good… I’m just glad to have the job and be able to work with the kids… I’ve just got to get the schedule down so that I make sure I’m where I’m supposed to be when I’m supposed to be there, ya know?  For those of you that are about to go into a Resource Room kind of schedule and are wondering what that might look like, here’s my schedule as an example. Everybody’s is different, and yours will probably look very different once you start teaching. Just in case, though, at least you have a general idea of what to expect:

• 7:30 – 8:30          Arrival and preparation of classroom for the day
• 8:30 – 9:00          Inclusion with 5^th grade class
• 9:00 – 10:00        Resource room with Kindergarteners
• 10:00 – 10:25      Walk from the main building back to trailers and get ready for my next class
• 10:25-11:25         Fourth grade kids come to my trailer for resource services
• 11:25-12:25         Third grade kids come to trailer for resource services
• 12:25-1:25           Fifth grade kids come to trailer for resource services
• 1:25-2:00             Lunch
• 2:00-2:30             Grade-level planning meeting for either K, 3, 4 or 5
• 2:30-3:00             Inclusion with 5^th grade class
• 3:00-3:30             Planning or IEP meeting time, if needed       

               

During the third week (aka my first week with the students), I set up a Do Now on the board for each class, and taught them to enter the classroom quietly then look for the Do Now and get started right away. This way, the kids would know what’s expected of them on how they should come into the classroom (procedure), and they had some direction as well to help them get on task right away. And, I could take attendance silently while they were mid-procedure, so no learning time would be wasted with that later. They did okay the first few days. Most of them came right in and sat down on day one and two, then realized the Do Now was on the board and got up to get the needed materials and get started a few minutes after. By Thursday, they were pretty well acclimated with this process. On Friday, they nailed it. I WAS SO PROUD!!!  After introducing the process the first day, I walked into the classroom with them the rest of the days and stood off to the side near my desk and watched them to see what they would do. By Friday, they came straight into the classroom walking (yay), quietly (yay again), read the Do Now and got straight to work (Awesome!!!). I could see in that moment just how helpful our training had been this summer, and I was so appreciative. Now when we get down to content next week, they’ll already know the process and they’ll get themselves on task as soon as they come into the classroom. Yay… I’m a teacher!!!

I pretty much did the same thing with the rules and our other procedures.  We did a modified version of Bill Cecil’s Rules Workshop (modified b/c of the ages of my kids and the short amount of time I have with each group). It worked so well. We started out by talking about what rules we think we should have in our classroom and why they might be important. Then we narrowed them down into a concise list of 4 or 5, and kept them phrased In the positive. We reviewed and talked about them each day so they were constantly reinforced. About midway into the week, we began to act out the rules in skits. The kids LOVED this part! What does following this rule look like? What does NOT following it look like? They seemed to come alive when they were given the freedom to act out the do’s and don’ts of the classroom, and I so enjoyed their creativity in all this. I guess the greatest reward is that they’re remembering the rules (well, most of them anyway, lol) and that our group time is relatively controlled and everything. I see them self-correcting sometimes, too, which is great. When we get into content next week, we’ll have the expectations at least initially explained, discussed and practiced, so we could just do reinforcement throughout the year to keep things intact and our time purposeful.

I also took time out to explain our rewards system, because my intention is to really focus on the good and not harp so much on negatives, if that’s at all possible.  I introduced Scholar Dollars (for my little scholars, haha), our sticker chart and a series of other rewards that were simple but effective (like 10 minutes extra computer time, being able to do your work sitting at the teacher’s desk, an extra water break, etc.). That went well too. I guess we’ll see how everything pans out as the year goes on, and I’ll tweak things as needed once I see what actually works and what doesn’t. We’ll see!!

Days I’ve been a teacher with real live students:    4

Week Two ... the saga continues...

Second week of school starts, and things are in full swing for everyone else now. Teachers are practicing their rules and procedures with the students, and it’s great to watch and listen to.  From my trailer, I watch class after class practice lining up, walking on the right, practicing fire drills, etc. I still don’t know which grades I’ll have yet or even who my kids will be, but I watch them intently to learn from them so I’ll know how to do the same thing hopefully in a week or so. Because I don’t have my roster yet and don’t know which of the kids will be in my resource groups, my days this week don’t really have a ‘schedule’ to them. I come in at 7:30 and have a free-flowing day until it’s time to go home at 3:30. So I clean. I arrange the desks and chairs in my room. I run out to Home Depot or Lowe’s or WalMart and buy air fresheners and plants and stuff to help make the room look nice. I go to the teacher’s store (oh, my goodness… you could just get llllllost in there!!! Love it!!!) and purchase wall banners and character development posters and the like. And I can even go out and grab some lunch if I want.  Cool beans! J

I finally broke down and went to WalMart to buy some shelves, since we didn’t have any. So that Friday and Monday of the following week were spent hammering and nailing shelves together so that our library area would be presentable once we started pulling kids for resource services. I have to admit, it was really nice to have this ‘flux time’ to get everything cleaned up and presentable. The other teachers had a week or so of workdays to do this work when they came back for the new school year, but I missed out on that time because I was hired so late in the process. I’m thankful that the school thought enough of me to remember that I needed that time as well. All things really do work together for the good!

It’s finally the end of the second week, and I get my list of kids just before we leave school to begin the weekend. I finally have access to their IEPs, so I can also spend some of the weekend time reading them and familiarizing myself with their needs before I begin to work with them on next Tuesday. Can’t believe it’s time for me to actually have students. I can’t wait!!!

And we're off!!!

So, anyway! I’m in my first full week now at my new school. On my first day, it’s Open House. People are scrambling left and right trying to get ready for the parents that will soon be coming to meet their children’s teachers. I don’t have a home yet, so one of the staff takes me around to the classrooms and introduces me to the teachers. I’m absolutely loving all the creativity I’m seeing with the room setups, wall decorations, centers that are set up, etc. While they’re talking, I’m taking thousands of mental notes about which things I like and would love to use in my classroom, once I get it. At this point, I still don’t know which grade(s) I’ll be working with, but I’m taking in everything at every level, just in case. At least I have it narrowed down now to K-5! 

I get the key to my mobile unit (trailer, haha) in the afternoon, and go in to see what I’ll be dealing with in terms of cleanup and furniture needs and stuff. This place was in need of a serious clean-up. The trailer was used for storage for a good while, so although the walls were painted, they’re now scraped up and dirty and icky in many places because so much furniture has been pushed up against them for so long. Definitely gotta paint. In terms of furniture, I have plenty of desks and chairs for the kids, but no tables. One table in the whole room, and I’m holding onto it for dear life. If someone takes that one out, we’re in a world of trouble when we finally get our computers. We have a storage cabinet (yay) and one teacher’s desk, too. While the other furniture is on order for us, we scrub and disinfect and polish up everything we can… Comet and bleach are our best friends on these days.

School finally starts a few days later, and so does our painting. The other teacher and I work together to get the walls covered and have the room nice and bright and welcoming for when our students start spending time with us. For the next two days, although school is fully in session now and there are kids everywhere, I’m in jeans and a tshirt because my whole day right now consists of painting those walls so that that part will be behind us and we can move on to room arrangement sometime soon. So one day, I’m well into my painting, light yellow spots of paint all over my tshirt and jeans, hands covered in paint splotches, a fine spray of paint on the side of my face from when I pushed the paint roller too hard across the wall because my hands were starting to literally hurt from painting so much (and because the paint was starting to get low, so every little bit had to come out of that dern thing so the remaining paint would be enough to last)… and we get a fire drill. SERIOUSLY?????  I look a mess. No, scratch that. I look BEYOND a mess. My jeans are rolled up around my ankles, I just have on socks so my shoes wouldn’t get messed up, and my hair is in an I-don’t-care-how-I-look-I’ve-got-work-to-do ponytail kind of thing. And where do I have to go?? Out of my nice, private trailer into the parking lot with many, many (many) kids all lined up and clean and pretty, and tons of teachers who look clean and professional and who don’t know me or what the heck I’ve been doing for the last two days. Yep. Wonderful. I get so many strange looks from the kids and from the teachers who are around, but can’t say anything because during fire drills, we have to be silent. I’m soo, so glad to finally hear the announcement from the office that the fire drill is over and we can return to our classrooms that I don’t know what to do. I walk as fast as I can back to my trailer in an effort to minimize the number of other people seeing me looking such a mess … oh, my goodness. What a way to meet my colleagues!!

I'm MzNewTeacher! Nice to meetcha!

Things are coming together...

The first three weeks of school have flown by like a whirlwind, literally. I can’t believe that just a few weeks ago, I was brand new with no students at all, a dirty storage trailer that had just been emptied of all its (many) items, and no clue who was who and what was where. Looking back, it’s amazing to me just how quickly that time flew by, and how much has happened in such a short time. Let’s start with the very first week I arrived on campus.

I was hired very late In the hiring cycle for the new school year. Most of my counterparts had been hired by other schools weeks and weeks ago, and there was a group of us (maybe 25 or so) who still didn’t have jobs with the first day of school approaching less than a week and a half away. Scary business. It was so unsettling to get so close to the beginning of school and still not have a clue what school you’d be working at, what your hours would be, what your commute would look like (crucial in our city), and even what grade level you’d be working with. None of those questions were answered for us just yet, and everything was still very much up in the air. I mean, even though you’re waiting patiently and interviewing almost daily and trying to prepare yourself for the job as much as you can, how can you adequately prepare if you’re not sure you’ll work with kindergartners or seniors in high school? How can you begin to purchase materials for your walls and your classroom when you’re not sure whether or not your students will be old enough to read?

And how can you begin to budget your monthly (yes, monthly) paycheck so that you’ll know how much gas money you’ll have to set aside to get back and forth to work until the end of the month comes again? In our city, the bus doesn’t go everywhere. So some places, you either have to have a car to get to or you should plan on a very long and hot walk from the “nearest” bus stop to get to where you need to go. And how much time should you budget for that? Knowing which of our many schools we’d be at would have been a great first step, ya think? I mean, information like that could mean the difference between your getting up at 4:30 – 5:00 am in order to get a jump on the traffic to your (very far away) school, to being able to sleep till 6:30 or so and not have to be to school until 8 or 9 am. Our schools are on staggered opening schedules, so we have many schools that open at 7:30, others that begin at 8:30 and still others that don’t even begin their day until 9:30 in the morning. That’s a bigggg difference when it comes to planning your morning and knowing whether or not you’ll be able to be there to see your own kids off to school before you head on down to the job to take care of other folks’ children. So many things to consider, and yet so many unanswered questions for us. This was a very, very uneasy time.

The same day the remaining teachers without jobs were to be automatically assigned to schools, I got a call with a job offer to a great school. This was one of the interviews I had that went exceptionally well, and I felt really comfortable with my interviewer the whole time. Felt like I’d known her for years. Yeah… this was the right place for me. Looking back, I’m so, so glad that this is the school I ended up at. So many of my friends are at schools doing inclusion most of the day, in classrooms where the gen ed teacher doesn’t really want them there and shows it. I feel so blessed to have the assignment I have. I have my own space. The staff is supportive. The kids are great. I mean, seriously. The worst thing I have to be concerned with behavior-wise is that the kids talk out of turn (because they’re all so excited that they all want to share with you at the same time). Oh. And every so often, they’ll forget to raise their hand to let you know they need something. REALLY??? I thought I’d have so, so, so, so many other behavior issues that it’s not even funny. I spent my entire year of application and program training reading other teacher’s blogs so that I could see what it would really be like in the trenches, and let me tell you, they go through some rough stuff. In comparison, I’m just overflowing with blessings, and I’m really, really grateful. I so admire those teachers who have all those behavior issues to deal with on a daily basis and yet continue pushing through, not giving up but remaining determined to effect change and be the difference they want to see. Hats off to you guys, for real. You deserve it.

Catching up time!

Wowwww… so much has happened in the last few weeks. I’ve got so much to catch up on that it’s just crazy. I originally intended to update this blog every day, or at least once or twice a week, so that I’d have an accurate record of what my first year of teaching has been like. But… yeah… that didn’t happen. I knew teachers were busy. I knew teachers were some of the hardest working people alive. And I knew that they gave so much of their time to actually teaching students, then later planning for students and activities that they probably didn’t have much real time left over for themselves. But I had no idea. Teachers rock, dude. It still amazes me how they get up and do what they do morning after morning, exhausted or not, sick or not, and still manage to give their students their best and start each day with a smile. I want to be like them when I grow up. J

So now that I realize that expecting to be able to update this blog every day, or at least twice a week or so, is a little excessive for me right now, I’ve decided that what I’ll do is update it a few times a month, but just list several entries on the same day. Today, for example, I’m catching up (big time). Today’s post will have several different entries of different days, but all with today’s date (because I’m reeeeeeally late in getting this daggone stuff up, haha). Anyway, the content’s there. And you get the picture. So, here we go!

Necessity is the mother of invention...

And sometimes decision, too. Decided on the Blue Burst color for the walls, so we went down to Lowes to pick up the paint. That's when we found out that the paint was $30 per gallon (so not gonna happen), so someone (thank God!) suggested we check out the returned paint rack in the back ... didn't even know there was such a thing! And there they were... two brand new gallons of Butter Cream with the primer already mixed in... just sitting there waiting for us at FIVE DOLLARS A GALLON. Favor is a wonderful thing!! So instead of spending upwards of sixty dollars in paint, brushes and rollers, we spent less than twenty and left the store with everything we needed to get that room up and running. Bless God!!

here's some pics of part three of our room transformation:

Hmmm... what color should it be...?

Okay... so I've been busy cleaning and scrubbing and disinfecting stuff, and now it's time to make a decision on what color these walls should be... I'm not sure where to start. I love a nice, bright, airy room, but I don't want it to be so light that it has no character and uniqueness to it. I love blues and have seen medium to darker blue walls (and they look beautiful), but my space is really big and I don't want to make it look smaller unnecessarily... hmmm. Solution! Went down to Lowe's and bought some paint samples (these things are great!!! Only $2-3 per container, and you can paint a swatch on your wall to see what you think... Love this!!) to see how different colors would look. Whaddaya think?

ELEMENTARY, YAY!!!

I've been praying for placement in an elementary school since this whole process started, and today, I got my wish! Yay me!! I'll be working in the Resource Room (I have my OWN ROOM, yay me again!!) with different grades. We're in one of the many mobile units behind my school, so I have my own classroom, my own space, my own key, etc.... and I love it!!! Can't wait to see how this classroom will transform over the next few weeks. It was being used for storage for a long while, so the paint is chipped  and splotchy in alot of places, the floors need some help and eeeeeverything needs to be cleaned, but it's mine, and I'm definitely up for the challenge! Here's what it looks like right now, after some tlc:

Two whiteboards in the front, with windows on either side - gonna get some great natural light this way!

Don't be fooled by these blue walls.. the paint looks like it's in much better shape than it is close up ;)

After some bleach, comet and much scrubbing, our desks and chairs are ready to be used!

My back bulletin board w/power strip for the computer center

I got a job!!!

Whew, that was close... just hours (and I do mean hours) before the rest of us still looking for jobs were to be randomly placed at schools with openings, my offer came through. O bless God. Not that the other schools were bad choices, because they weren't... but I had a really good interview with a school that I think would be a great fit for me, and I was waiting to hear back from them before things were 'official'. They called JUST as our administration was working on placing people in different slots, and right in the nick of time, too. Admin had already placed someone else in the slot I wanted and had me going somewhere else. Glad we got that fixed. Whew, that was close!!