Teaching Log #5: First Days

So I've made it through the first two days.

I remember once long time ago a non-teacher friend of mine saying she assumed I like the first days of school.

I really don't.

They're very stressful, especially leading up to them. It's all about room setup which means making things look nice and neat and teacher-y. I've never really been that type of teacher. I've never had great handwriting or known exactly where to put things or kept things consistently neat. And I've sometimes resented being expected to.

But this year I really made an effort. The night before we came back to setup our rooms, we in the second grade received a surprising email that two teachers would be switching rooms. I was not one of them, but share a room with one. So the new teacher entering my room and I had to setup together.

It was a LOT of work. We also had lots of meetings those days, so I came around 8:30, then left to pick up ND around 3:30. Then I brought her back to school, let her nap a bit in the stroller, then when she woke up I put her on my back in an Ergo baby carrier and worked until 6 or later when my partner and I were just too tired to do anymore. I really like D, the person I'm sharing the room with, and J. is an assistant for both of us so we sort of have a three-person team spread through 2 classes. (I should mention that I also work a few hours in the morning as "support" in their room, so I really am part of their team.)

I didn't love doing the actual room setup, but I love the way it looks now, and I did enjoy getting to know D and J and I enjoyed coming home to make cool labels for things in the classroom. Any time I didn't contribute to the team because I was pumping milk or caring for ND directly was made up for with me making stuff on the computer to put up later in the room... labels for supply baskets, signs etc.

As for the first days of teaching... it's scary. Instead of facing a room of kids I know, and navigating the well-known pitfalls or saying things just right to reach that one kid, you're in a mine field. There's this fresh room of faces and from them emerges this one who always wants her hand held, this one who makes faces when you're talking, this one who slips into the library in the middle of a circle time, this one who interrupts you right in the middle of you lecturing the class on not interrupting because you are trying to give them instructions that you KNOW they want to know.

Later I'll know my way around, and will feel so proud of it, but now I never know where those things will come from.

The good news is that we did an assignment the kids enjoyed. In an outline of a person the kids drew:

In the feet: where they like to go
In the hands: what they like to do
In the head: what they think about
In the heart: who they love most in the world

This was transfered onto a template for an instant poem. Once they edit and revise their poems tomorrow, I'll take them home and type them up. then i'll put them and the original person outline on the hall bulletin board by Monday night, Open House Night.

I'm so sleepy...