The First Thoughts

To give you an idea of how hectic my life has been this last month, I had originally hoped to set up my blog in the middle of August. I set this blog up selfishly. I thought blogging would make me reflect about all the; great, touching, horrible, insane, and mundane things about teaching. In the first month of teaching at my new school I have already learned so much.

1-The students I have are some of the most fascinating people I have ever met. I look at them and realize how incredibly bright their future’s can be. I reflect about myself at their age and I recognize that I was just a sack of potatoes my senior year compared to my students.

2-I still wonder if admitting you don’t know it all means that you know a whole lot more than you think do. Through out the course of the day I come to understand that there is so much out there I still need to learn. Sometimes, “I don’t know” is the most honest thing I say.

3-A place is made up of people. A school is not just; a bunch of classes, a cafeteria, and in the case of my school a bingo hall. A school is made up of; smiling students’ faces, teachers striking up conversations with students in the hall, and everybody feeling that they are involved in something special no matter what their role is.

4-I am really learning as my students are learning. I am teaching reflective writing and I am thinking about all the things that I feel blessed for going through, for good or bad.

5-On that same point, I am realizing I can learn so much from my students. I have learned; the difference between present perfect progressive and present emphatic, what loss truly is, how we cope as human beings is often individual, and that sometimes maturity has nothing to do with age. (Oh yeah, and how to wrestle a shark)

6-Knowing I can ask for help at anytime and get it is something new to me. I was brought into teaching with the old teaching in a box routine. I stayed in my room until I figured it out, whatever it was. Here the teachers are all so helpful; either with a handshake in the morning from a veteran history teacher, a teacher making literal and figurative space for me in her classroom, or a new teacher just like me working together to figure out what exactly we are trying to do.

7-Sometimes I realize that me standing in front of a group of kids is not a good idea. Maybe it was when I started showing my students a site called Kitten War or maybe it was when I couldn’t keep a straight face after one of my students made a physical blunder.

8- I need more sleep.

9-The responsibility of being a teacher is pretty immense. I am standing in front of a class of high school seniors and I realize that I play a part in them being successful at the next level. It may sound vain but I think this is true. I reflect on being a freshman in college and realizing how unprepared I was. I don’t want my students to have the same deer in the headlights look that I had.

10-This is going to be a great year. And this isn’t just because I need a tenth reflection on my list. A list of nine things just seems odd anyways. It is going to be a great year because I have no evidence to prove the contrary. I like waking up at 6:30 and putting my dress shirt and pants to go to a school that I feel lucky to be at.