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