I work in a district that is part of a large metropolitan area surrounding a major city - and I live in that major city. When my significant other were looking at places to live in this area (once it was determined that we could both find good jobs here), we considered living outside of the city - but hated every place we looked at. Since his job has an office in the city, and we found a place close to the major interstate that takes us out of the city, we decided to have one car, and I job-hunted in the districts in and around the city.
This means I will have a 25-30 minute commute to my school. Luckily, as with many cities, most people will be coming into the city in the morning as I'm leaving, and driving out as I drive in. I've talked to a woman who works at a school in my school's neighborhood and also lives in the city, and she says it is the smoothest commute she's ever dealt with.
During student teaching, I lived near my university and worked at an elementary school about 20 minutes away. I got used to having that commute time to decompress and unwind after rough days. My first week there, before the kids arrived, my mentor and I went through every student's cumulative folder (I'm curious to see if my district now uses these folders to track student progress throughout their education in that district...they were useful!). By the end of the day, we knew that Student A had been living with various guardians since age 2, and her mother would be coming home after 6 years - and that this student's report cards were littered with concern about her emotional stability. Student B's file was so thick it took two hands to lift, and we had to call in her 1st grade teacher to discuss the legal ramifications of the contents. Student C had moved from school to school since kindergarten, Student D was new and his IEP was lost in transit. And on and on. I got into my car and burst into tears. There was just so much to handle in these kids' lives - how could I ever learn to handle it on my own so that I could be a stable force for them?
I learned to handle it. I'm not all the way there - I will probably still cry for the things that kids go through, and be angry at the adults in their lives, and worry constantly about how they're doing. But I did learn to compartmentalize the stress of it, and a big piece of that skill comes from having time to myself at the end of the day. Yes, I'll talk to my boyfriend when I get home about my day, but there are some things that I may need time to process - and talking to myself, or calling my dad (a former teacher) or one of my best friends (many of whom are teachers) to vent about teacher-specific things will be really useful.
That being said - I'm off to the administrative center today to sign my contract! Where is everyone else in the hiring process? What stresses do you anticipate in your classroom? How do you plan to handle them?
xoxo
Miss Zee
Monday, July 29, 2013
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Hello, world!
Evening, y'all!
Welcome to my corner of the internet, where I plan to write as much as I can over the next school year about the ups, downs, and in-betweens of my first year of teaching.
You can learn a bit about me in the 'About Me" page up top, but to give you a quick summary: I just earned my Master of Teaching in Elementary Education from a school on the East Coast, and am going to be teaching third grade in a large school district on the same coast. I'm writing this blog under a pseudonym in order to keep my personal and professional lives separate, but everything I write here will be as true to my experience as I can keep it (no student, parent, teacher, principal, or school names will be used, though, because that's not cool in my book).
My hope for this blog is to serve a couple of purposes. First, I love to write, and while I will certainly write in a journal about teaching (thoughts for myself, you know?), I also want to carve out a space online to share with others going through the same year. Second, I want to be super-clear: this is not a crafty blog. I was born without the Creative/DIY Gene, and that's just how it is. If you are looking for blogs on how to create a gorgeous bulletin board, 79 Things to Do With Carpet Squares, or free downloads of well-drawn flipbooks on the life cycle of amphibians, I am not your girl. But you should share those blogs with me, since I need ideas. I want to write about the things that happen in my first year that teach me lessons - if a lesson backfires horribly, I want to focus on what that can teach me. If the lesson goes fabulously, same deal. One of the things my mentor in student teaching told me was that every day holds valuable lessons for a teacher - at any point in her (or his) career. With that wisdom in mind, I want to approach this year reflectively - and hopefully use that reflection to prevent myself from feeling like a colossal failure (because, let's be honest, there will be days and weeks where it all goes awry and I do a lot of panicking).
Right now, I'm about a month out from starting school - the kids come back after Labor Day. Next week, I'm going in to sign my contract (I need to use a PC for that and I only have a Mac and really, I feel like perhaps there is some grant waiting to be written to make school tech compatible with all computers), then I have a day-long PD event at my school. I am not sure what the PD is focusing on, but I know it matters to my principal (after all, she specifically arranged for it) - and really, I'm desperate to meet people! I know there will be a lot of new teachers at this school, and I'd love to meet them. And I want to get a feel for the veteran teachers - and perhaps find someone who will be a good shoulder to lean on from time to time. At the moment, there are a lot of unknowns (I'll write about them later), and I'm trying to remember that the unknowns aren't bad - they're just out of my control at the moment, and that's okay.
Before I sign off - I want to encourage y'all to make your voices known - comment, sign up for posts via email (little box off to the right), follow me on Bloglovin' (icon coming soon), and give me feedback. If you're a newbie like me, say hi - and if you're in your 30th year of teaching and have advice, OMG please say hi.
In short: let's do this.
xoxo
Miss Zee
Welcome to my corner of the internet, where I plan to write as much as I can over the next school year about the ups, downs, and in-betweens of my first year of teaching.
You can learn a bit about me in the 'About Me" page up top, but to give you a quick summary: I just earned my Master of Teaching in Elementary Education from a school on the East Coast, and am going to be teaching third grade in a large school district on the same coast. I'm writing this blog under a pseudonym in order to keep my personal and professional lives separate, but everything I write here will be as true to my experience as I can keep it (no student, parent, teacher, principal, or school names will be used, though, because that's not cool in my book).
My hope for this blog is to serve a couple of purposes. First, I love to write, and while I will certainly write in a journal about teaching (thoughts for myself, you know?), I also want to carve out a space online to share with others going through the same year. Second, I want to be super-clear: this is not a crafty blog. I was born without the Creative/DIY Gene, and that's just how it is. If you are looking for blogs on how to create a gorgeous bulletin board, 79 Things to Do With Carpet Squares, or free downloads of well-drawn flipbooks on the life cycle of amphibians, I am not your girl. But you should share those blogs with me, since I need ideas. I want to write about the things that happen in my first year that teach me lessons - if a lesson backfires horribly, I want to focus on what that can teach me. If the lesson goes fabulously, same deal. One of the things my mentor in student teaching told me was that every day holds valuable lessons for a teacher - at any point in her (or his) career. With that wisdom in mind, I want to approach this year reflectively - and hopefully use that reflection to prevent myself from feeling like a colossal failure (because, let's be honest, there will be days and weeks where it all goes awry and I do a lot of panicking).
Right now, I'm about a month out from starting school - the kids come back after Labor Day. Next week, I'm going in to sign my contract (I need to use a PC for that and I only have a Mac and really, I feel like perhaps there is some grant waiting to be written to make school tech compatible with all computers), then I have a day-long PD event at my school. I am not sure what the PD is focusing on, but I know it matters to my principal (after all, she specifically arranged for it) - and really, I'm desperate to meet people! I know there will be a lot of new teachers at this school, and I'd love to meet them. And I want to get a feel for the veteran teachers - and perhaps find someone who will be a good shoulder to lean on from time to time. At the moment, there are a lot of unknowns (I'll write about them later), and I'm trying to remember that the unknowns aren't bad - they're just out of my control at the moment, and that's okay.
Before I sign off - I want to encourage y'all to make your voices known - comment, sign up for posts via email (little box off to the right), follow me on Bloglovin' (icon coming soon), and give me feedback. If you're a newbie like me, say hi - and if you're in your 30th year of teaching and have advice, OMG please say hi.
In short: let's do this.
xoxo
Miss Zee
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