One year ago, I wrote a blog post about dead ends and my difficulties finding a job I could enjoy. Now I'm two weeks into teaching at a great school with phenomenal principals and really great kiddos. It's amazing how things change change so drastically for the better, isn't it?
It's funny how I was planning on writing a blog about my new job and my new apartment today and then time hop pulls up that post from last year. I think it really took suffering through a soul crushingly terrible job in order to motivate me to get up and go find that dream job.
Let me begin by saying the weeks before starting your first teaching job are the most terrifying weeks of your life. I had dreams about school, good and bad, every day from August 1st until school started. I had never known stress like the stress of trying to prepare your classroom (SO EXPENSIVE!!!!!!) and prepare an apartment when you have virtually no money. Spending hours and hours going through music and costumes and decorations and other classroom materials left behind by the previous teacher. Spending hours and hours dusting every surface. I don't know how one lets dust get so bad that you have to vacuum the walls, but that's what my mom and I did. We slaved over one closet for an entire 8 hour day. It's beautiful, but man, was it hard work.
The students are pretty amazing. There's a couple of tough ones, but we'll make it work. My fourth graders have a ton of good voices which makes me excited for choir performances! I do get at least one kid a day who asks if we're going to watch a movie. And it's always Alvin and the Chipmunks. Sorry, kiddo. There won't be any movies. Especially not that movie. If i watched that 6 times in one day, I'd have to shove knives into my ears. Maybe a Quaver video from time to time. But no Chipmunks.
I'm also quickly finding out what presses my buttons. The biggest one right now is when they walk in and ask what we're doing today. I get that they're excited and I love that, but YOU'LL FIND OUT IN 3 SECONDS CHILL. And when I am about to explain something (like when I said "we're going to learn about my kindness board and how to use it") and they ask "what is that?" I LITERALLY JUST TOLD YOU THAT I'M ABOUT TO TELL YOU WHAT IT IS OMG. those are the times I smile, take a breath, and relax, for sure. And then there is all the repetition. Chatty-ness is probably my biggest issue right now. Lots of talking while I'm talking/interrupting me/just flat out not listening to instructions. I have quickly learned that repeating myself more than once is a trigger for me, so I've got to work on that. Don't wanna be going off on my poor ADD/ADHD babies who can't help it. <3
I think my favorite age group is also my least favorite and that is Kindergarten. THEY ARE SO CUTE AND PRECIOUS. But then they're also difficult to corral. It's actually how I would imagine herding cats to be. And then one kid does a bad thing and they think it's funny so now they're ALL doing it. But I learned that "I'm going to have to let your teacher know we had a hard day in music today" whips them into shape. My favorite is when their mom is a teacher and I say "Make it a good day so I can tell your mom it was awesome." Their little eyes get huge as they think "OH GOD SHE KNOWS MY MOM DON'T TELL HER I WASN'T LISTENING PLEASEEEEEE".
Thus post doesn't feel like it flows well and it's probably a lot of boring information that no one cares about, but to be honest, my brain feels like it doesn't flow very well right now because there's so much going on. I just had to take advantage of the coincidence of last year's blog post and fill you in on the current state of my life. Also I'm typing this on my phone and I'm too lazy to proof read so if there are typos and grammatical errors you can fight meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Just kidding. Have a good holiday weekend, friends. I wish they could all be this long!
