One year ago...

I was really hoping that I would have a job. 

I was so excited, but I had lots of fears:

• Will I get along with my team?
• Will I be able to find my way around my school because it is ginormous?
• Will my kids behave?  Will my classroom management stand up to 30 seventh graders?
• Will I remember everything from 7th grade Math?
• Will I be able to wake up early every single day and kiss sleeping in goodbye forever?
• What will I do if my students don't get it? 

Oh the questions...the anxieties...there were definitely some sleepless nights, but all has come together so nicely.  God granted me so much favor in this job and definitely had my best interest in mind all along.  I now can look back and answer my own questions:

1)  Will I get along with my team? 

Absolutely!  I am absolutely blessed to work with such great people.  Not only are they wonderful educators and great role models for me in that regard, but they are so encouraging and thoughtful to me as a new teacher.  I AM BLESSED!

2)  Will I be able to find my way around my school because it is ginormous?

Ha!  It was quite amusing when on the first day of school I was leading tours for some of my kiddos.  It was similar to the blind leading the blind, but I pretty much faked my way through and then was determined to learn the building...and I did!  No problem!  

3)  Will my kids behave?  Will my classroom management stand up to 30 seventh graders?

I think if a new teacher doesn't ask this question at the beginning of his/her first year, then there are some serious issues of denial going on.  I guess I just think this is a valid concern, but I am proud to say that classroom management was not really an issue at all.  Don't get me wrong, I had some problem children, and I did have 2 get expelled last year (not from things they did in my class, but I still had them in my room each day)...so it wasn't like I had a ridiculously easy group either.  MK just laughs at me when I talk about classroom management--I guess I can be bossy at times so he thinks it should never be a problem for me. Believe it or not, I plan to come on stronger yet at the beginning of this year.  The old adage is very true: you can always ease up, but you really can't come on stronger once the year starts.  The kids see right through you! 

4)  Will I remember everything from 7th grade Math?

The answer to this?  No!  Sad face.  No, I didn't explicitly remember everything, but did I remember most things? For sure.  My classes at UNI really prepared me well.  There were only a few things that I had never even been exposed to, and I found out that they are relatively new concepts...box-and-whisker plots and histograms.  So there you go.  If you think you're smarter than a 7th grader, make sure you can create both of those.  If you are like me and you aren't sure, you can google them...

5)  Will I be able to wake up early every single day and kiss sleeping in goodbye forever?

This was definitely one of the hardest parts about teaching, but thankfully student teaching and subbing prepared me for the real world.  There were definitely days when it was hard to wake up in the morning simply because I'm a 8-9 hours of sleep kind of girl, which just isn't always possible.  Thankfully I caught up on the weekends.  That will definitely be interesting now that we have a puppy that wakes up every day at 6:00am....bye bye Saturday morning sleeping in! 

6)  What will I do if my students don't get it?
This is actually a question that I was asked in my interview.  Ha!  I did my best to answer it at the time, but I now have a much better appreciation and understanding of what this truly means because my team does such a good job of this--remediation!!!!  Gone are the olden days, folks, when you can just leave a kid behind.  "Oh, sorry, you didn't get it the first time!?!?!  That's too bad, ________.  We're moving on!!!!! You missed the bus forever!!!!"  Nope, we have time built into our calendar and our plans to re-teach and re-learn in a new way.  It's awesome, and one of the things that I love about my job.  Woo!

I am so blessed to wake up every day to a job that I LOVE!  I'm already praying for the faces and kiddos that I will have this next year.   I'm so excited to make changes, try some new things, and improve this next year!  Bring on the 2010-2011 school year!