Apples to Apples

The school year started out rough. It was just a lot of change and demands on me all at once. Today was ok. I didn’t get the chance to implement as many new things in my room as I wanted, but I made an effort to follow my rules and the day flowed well. I’m looking forward to the weekend to start thinking about the changes I’m going to make for the second quarter.

It dawned on my today that I have ZERO parent issues. In the past years of teaching I’ve had tons of parent involvement which sometimes led to parent issues. I also always had volunteers in my room. So strange not to have anyone in my room, emailing me, or calling regularly. I call them, but no one calls back. Just another different I guess. Not like last year when my principal had to get a restraining order on one of my student’s parents. Yuck. That was not fun at all.

Hoping tomorrow is a good as today!

At my In-Service day on Friday, the presenter showed a clip from Dead Poets Society. It was a great clip and showed exactly what he was talking about (applying learning to the student, stepping outside the traditional classroom). I am such a sappy geek that I got embarrassingly teary-eyed just quickly replaying the movie in my mind and remembering how much I sobbed at the end that last time I watched it. I haven’t seen it since I’ve become a teacher though. I wonder how I would look at it now. With teacher eyes? Probably. It’s on my list of videos to rent now. I decided I would also like to see other teacher-based movies I’ve never seen. Some that I know of are:

          Dangerous Minds

          Red Hot Ballroom

          Lean on Me  - ? Is that what it’s called. The one when the black principal reforms the school? What is that one called? I’ve only seen like 20 minutes of it (a clip of it in a grad class).

Are there others I should check out?

All teachers new to my district have to attend new teacher meetings once a month. We just had ours for October last week. I was not looking forward to it. In all honesty, who ever is? The meetings thus far have been really good. I’ve gotten a lot of good ideas and I’m happy when I leave. It’s the getting there that’s hard. Also my biggest complaint is that I feel like they are always past the fact.  It’s October and we reviewed classroom management.

          This weeks meeting broke us down by grade level. Thank you, thank you, thank you! The worst way for me to spend my time is learning about how to deal with Kindergarten students when I teach junior high. I think it is important to understand children at all levels, but at an evening meeting in the middle of the week, I’m not up for it. I was glad to be surrounded by all junior high teachers and have a speaker who could focus on helping us specifically.

          From this meeting I walked away with the following:

§        Junior High students are at a transition in life, and much like a toddler, regress slightly before jumping into the next stage of life.  This reminder about the 12 & 13 yr old psyche was all I needed to hear to help me be able to tolerate my class until June. I was pulling my hair out and constantly saying to myself “Ohmigosh! It’s like he’s 3 years old”. Well, yes in fact it is. And thank you Mr. Presenter for reminding me.

• I need to make rules for myself again, so that I can have control of my classroom. This one is a little weird to some maybe, but I often challenge myself with certain things in life like “No fried food until you’ve lost 5 pounds” or something silly like that. And thankfully, I have the willpower to do that. I make rules for myself in the classroom, too. This year’s first rule was “No personal email from work” That one lasted about a week, and then I rationalized that my email is my sanity and what principal would want an insane teacher? After my meeting I’ve decided on two new rules. Both a big challenge to me.    
  1. No personal email, unless it’s my lunch break or after school.

This rule will keep me focused and make me use my personal plan time for school, so I can have a life on the weekends.

I am a culprit for teaching and giving work, doing a once over to make sure they all understand and then feeling unneeded and not wanting to waste time go to my desk to work. BAD BAD BAD TEACHER! That is totally on the list of becoming one of those teachers that I said I would never be. Plus, staying away from my desk, will keep me away from my email, which helps me follow my other rule.

I used my rules on Thursday and Friday and already I enjoy my class more.

Do you have personal rules? What are they?

I’ve been real negative about my school year so far. I’m just having a very hard time adjusting to my new life as a junior high special ed teacher in the ghetto. It is so vastly different from my cozy 4^th grade position in an affluent community. I had finally felt like I was getting my feet under me at this whole teaching thing and now I find myself with the same “first year” thoughts I had in 2002.

          I put a lot of pressure on myself to try to remember the multitude of things that are important when running a classroom and planning lessons. Then, when I can’t, I feel worthless and doubt that I should even be a teacher. It is usually then, that like earlier this week, I will receive an email or phone call from an unknowing friend that changes my perspective and motivates me to give it my all.

          I am happy to say that my first experience in a public school district is also as encouraging. In my district, teachers meet in a team everyday. They also have a personal plan period. On top of that, I am required to be in Special Ed meetings with the coordinator once a month PLUS I have to attend a meeting for all new teachers in the district once a month. Add in to that the mentoring program and in service presentations and I am feeling completely supported at my new job. It sounds like a lot. Veteran teachers hate all of the meetings and would probably like the time just to catch up on classroom stuff. And while I would love that time, I am finding it unbelievably helpful to have reminders every so often to help me push through to the next week. I really believe that my district (not necessarily my school) is doing all that it can to make better teachers out of each of us. I respect the people in charge and feel comfortable going to any of them if I need anything – even the superintendent.

          I am not entirely pleased with my position, the school, or some of the teachers, but I really do like the whole image of public school that I am getting. I think my district is on the right path and I’m happy to be able to help achieve their goals – because I think they are dedicated to helping me achieve mine.

So I have made the move across country. I have gotten my certification. I have started the job. It is a job I didn’t even want to interview for, but I reminded myself it is not easy to get into public school in IL and I had to go. I dragged myself down to the school that August morning and landed a job. I was going to teach 6th grade Language Arts and Social Studies…..to Special Ed. I know enough about myself to know that I have strength and patience, but just not enough for spec ed. I was told the students were mostly 4th grade level and ADHD - well, gees that doesn’t sound so spec ed to me. That’s what I was coming from. Then I started and saw what it really was. 

With half of the first quarter gone, I’m still not seeing the class I was told about in the interview. These students are all over the map in ability - from not even recognizing their own last name on a flashcard, to me wondering why they are even in my class to begin with. Now pile on the behavior disabilities, throw in two MMR students who stare at me blankly when asked the most basic of questions, and you’ve got my mix. I have my work cut out for me. It is the hardest job I’ve ever had.

Walking back from PE last week, I just wanted to crumble up and whine and whine and whine, then whine some more. I just had a little mental pity party and found myself saying that I am a 4th grade teacher stuck in a junior high. I feel completely trapped and dread going to school everyday. I count down the days between days off, hoping that reminding myself there is a small break coming will get me through that week.

Every morning I try to muster up the positive energy and smiles and every day by 10 they are gone. It is exhausting trying to pretend that I am happy at my new job. I can’t give up though. I couldn’t imagine the guilt and shame I would feel if my students could ever tell how I was feeling.

So I am finally going to get this site going and hopefully turning into what I hope it will.

I would love to see this be a place where educators gather to comment and help each other with the everyday struggles of our profession. I’ll post things I feel are helpful and we can share our stories and ideas.

So to start things off, I will tell you a little about my background and what I am doing now. I am from AZ. I went to school for Sociology and decided in my very last semester that I needed to be a teacher. I signed up for, and started, graduate school immediately after finishing my BA. I got my Master’s degree in Elementary Ed. I looked in to other programs, but the MA one was the fastest way to get certified. My first year I taught a 4th grade homeroom and 4th-8th grade PE and Science. It was awful.  I spent WAY too much of my own money and hated the school I worked for. Thankfully my students were AMAZING and I still keep in touch with a few of them. My second year I switched schools and taught a 3/4 combo class. This time the school was good, but the students were absolutely insane. The veteran teachers at my school assured me that this only happen every 15 years or so. I held on and taught those 3rd graders the following year as 4th graders. That was last year and by far my favorite teaching year. I feel like by year three I finally got a handle on all the separate responsibilities of a teacher.

Last year, I made a life decision to move across country. It took me just over 6 months to get my certificate in IL and land a job. It is not my ideal job, but it was this or Boy’s PE and I didn’t think I’d get that one!

Now, I am teaching a 6th grade Special Ed class at a junior high in a low income area. I don’t care for it that much, but I will write a separate post about that later.

So there it is. My teaching history and why I say the things I say when I write. I hope that you will share your points of view and tips on this site as well. The more teachers to help each other out, the better teachers we will all be.

I had such great plans to load up this blog with anything I could think of this weekend. Then, I remembered that it was Mother’s Day weekend. Needless to say, the blog posts have been started but won’t be posting until later this week (once job #2 ends) when I have time to really say what I want to say.

Please come back and read next weekend!! There will be new stories and tips to read.