Commuting to Work

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