teaching
The Best of Me
(Warning: This post is going up without much proofreading or too much thought. This is just something I needed to get out.)
Lately I have been incredibly overwhelmed by life. I truly love everything that occupies my time, but my fear is that I will soon not feel the same.
Teaching
I have the privilege of teaching a fantastic group of third graders this year. This is the grade I have always wanted to teach. It’s my dream. I spent the two weeks prior to beginning school engulfed in my classroom. I had a lot of great help and support from friends and family.There is no way to put what we did into words. I think every teacher can understand this. The best way to explain it is through photographs.
I get to school about an hour early every day. During this time I have a 30 minute lunch and a 40 minute planning period to get everything done. I usually use this time for parent communication and copying papers.
Once the students leave, I put my classroom back together, and get myself ready for the next day. I leave the school around 5:00.
I spend at least two hours a night working on lesson plans. This includes manuals spread all around me. My list of standards in front of me. Pinterest minimized on Safari. My lesson plan template front and center on my monitor.
I haven’t started grading papers this year, but that will account for much more of my evening time.
Yesterday I was surprised by a student teacher who I was uninformed would be in my classroom until Christmas on each Monday and Thursday. This means that I will have heaps of paperwork to fill out to go along with her.
Youth
I was recently hired by my church for the part time position of Youth Coordinator. I meet with the Junior Youth every Thursday evening from 5:30-6:30, and I meet with the Senior Youth from 6:45-8:00. I also schedule a monthly event with each group. These vents occur outside of the church. For example, we have enjoyed a movie night, a hike, and a day trip to the falls. In addition to this, I create promotional materials for social media, calendars, permission slips, and other documents.
Robotics
I co-coach a First Lego League Robotics team after school on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 4:00-5:30. I have a wonderful co-coach who does the bulk of the organizing and coordinating when it comes to this. I admire her skills in this area. I have had the pleasure of working with this fantastic group of kids for four years. They are truly special to me.
Reading Council
I am the co-president of my local reading council. This is an honor. I have a amazing officers who help in every way I need them. We meet during the summer to plan the years events. We create that year’s promotional materials such as membership cards and brochures. We secure speakers for our monthly meetings. We plan fundraising events. The list goes on.
One Saturday every other month, I drive to Charleston with my co-president for an executive board meeting.
In November, we attend an annual conference for two days.
These are just the things I do. This doesn’t include my personal life.
This doesn’t include the fact that my mother-in-law has cancer, and we make several trips to the airport to drop her off to catch a flight to the Cancer Treatment Center. We have also gone with her.
This doesn’t include that my sister is buying a house and getting married, and I want to be there for every minute of all of that.
There is also the fact that I love my mom, dad, and grandparents and want to spend as much time with them as possible.
I also have three nieces that are growing up so fast, and I feel like I am missing it.
I have a home that needs an unending amount of attention from me.
To be very honest, I want to be the best at everything I do. This is where I struggle.
The question is: Can you be the best at something when your time is so spent?
I have won awards for my teaching. My robotics team went to nationals. The reading council has been marked as an honor council.
So far so good. Right?
When will it be too much?
How will I know when to step away from something?
How will I step away from something?
Am I doing my best at everything, or is everything getting the best of me?
I find myself on Pinterest looking for new ways to teach place value and the next thing I know, I am looking at youth room decor. I have developed my own form of attention deficit.
For example, here I am writing this blog at 12:30 at night on a Tuesday when I really just meant to sit down and review my plans for the next day.
Good night.
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Finding My Voice
As a child, I was terribly shy. My teachers would always ask my mom if I ever talked. I was never one to raise my hand to give an answer. My lack of confidence kept me from ever being one to speak up.
I was encouraged by my friend Renee to go on a church retreat when I was in high school that was meant to teach leadership skills. There were several events on this weekend that put me way out of my comfort zone.
I returned as a staff member the next year, and was asked to give a talk by my dear friend Christy, who was leading the weekend. Several people told her I couldn’t do it. I had to preview the talk before the retreat and broke down in tears. I couldn’t get a single word of it out. By the weekend, I had worked up my courage and was able to give the talk. I have given several since then. I also went on to serve on the board for this organization.
When I began my education courses, I knew my first obstacle would be finding my “teacher voice”. My first teaching experience came in my Intro. to Education class where we were asked to teach a mini lesson to the class. I was so nervous, but the lesson went very well. It was made even more clear to me on that day that II was meant to teach. This was something I was actually good at, and my confidence began to grow.
In my first semester at college, I had a professor stop by one of my classes to share a potential job opportunity. It was an internship at the NASA Educator Resource Center. Something inside of me told me to go for it. I had never had a job before. Of course I was not the only interested party. I didn’t think that I stood a chance. I arrived about 30 minutes early for the interview, and I was a barrel of nerves. Another classmate was leaving her interview when I arrived. Soon after the interview, I received an email that I got the job.
I got the job.
I spent the next five years of my life working there. I met amazing people, and had so many unbelievably cool experiences. It taught me how to carry myself in a professional manner. Working there changed my life. To this day, I can’t believe I got the job.
I was blessed to have an amazing host teacher during my student teaching, who was such an inspiration as to what a teacher should be. I learned more from my experiences in his classroom than anything I learned in college. He nominated me as Student Teacher of the Year, and I won. My family and I were invited to a beautiful banquet to accept the award. I remain so thankful for this honor.
This summer I was called to serve as the president of our local reading council. This meant that I would be required to do a lot of talking in front of my colleagues. I called on my friend Amanda to serve with me as co-president. I couldn’t do it without her. The position has been a challenge, but with every meeting I am becoming more comfortable in the leadership position. We had a meeting last week, and I feel as though we finally hit our stride.
In September I was nominated by my friend and colleague, Joyce, for the Jennie R. Bechtold Reading Teacher Award. She guided me through the application process and kept pointing out the things that I do to make me worthy of this award. During our West Virginia Reading Association’s Annual Conference, my name was read with two other nominees. As we stood in front of the crowded room, my heart was pounding out of my chest. When they called my name, I could hardly keep myself composed. I will cherish that award for the rest of my life.
I am so thankful for these individuals and so many others who saw something in me that I didn’t know I had. It is thanks to them that I found my voice.
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Looking Back
I recently stumbled upon my “You Can Do This” playlist on an old external hard drive. This was my choice playlist for those late nights in front of the computer in my parents’ basement working on lesson plans, unit studies, and my portfolio during my undergraduate studies. It was a reminder of my days of working 20 hours a week and full-time teaching during my student teaching. The basement was always cold. I would bundle up in my favorite sweatpants and hoodie and ball myself up in the desk chair. I would brew an entire pot of coffee and welcome the breaks of walking upstairs to refill my cup. By the end of the night that 12-cup coffee pot would be nearly empty.
I spent many of those nights wishing that time in my life would pass. I was ready to move on from being a student and become a teacher. I was ready to walk down the aisle to the man I loved. I was ready to know what life held for me after graduation.
That was in 2010.
So much has changed since then. I love being able to look back and smile on that time in my life. I know one day I will be looking back on life with just the two of us in our tiny, green house with a similar fondness.
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Experiences in Teaching
I began my teaching career as a substitute in 2010. I ended the year with a long-term position in a third grade classroom. The next year I was lucky enough to get my first one year contract two days after the school year had started. My family and I worked tirelessly to move me into the classroom and make sure I was ready for my first graders.
Once that year ended I was hopeful that I would be able to assume this position again due to over-enrollment the next year. Throughout the summer I bid on every position possible. A few weeks before school started the job was posted and I bid. I saw in the agenda a few weeks later that I was not the recipient. All of my belongings were still in the classroom, as I was told by the previous principal that I would be his first choice. Unfortunately, he took a job at another school that summer and I was left in a lurch. I was notified a week later that the teacher who had the position resigned. I made a trip to the school to introduce myself to the new principal and express my desire for the job. Once again I began the year as a substitute, but was eventually hired for the position.
When the year ended the number revealed that there would likely not be a fourth first grade classroom the following year. I spent another summer making endless trips to the board office in hopes of getting a job. This time it happened before the school year started. I got the call in July, and I was ecstatic. I would be teaching sixth graders at a school much closer to my house. Although this was a big jump from first grade, I was looking forward to the challenge. The position I bid on was not marked as a one -year contract, so I thought I had actually made it. When I signed the contract I was informed that it was, in fact, a one-year contract. I was still thrilled, but continued to bid on permanent positions.
After talking to those who currently taught at the school, I was informed that I would be teaching science specifically. I was surprised that I wasn’t notified of this prior to speaking to other teachers and signing my contract. Luckily, I spent five years working for the NASA Educator Resource Center while I was in college. I was able to fall back on this prior knowledge and great resources to properly teach these students.
I was able to get into my classroom a week prior to school starting this year. I relied on help from friends and family members once again to get moved in. It took a while to get adjusted to a completely new way of doing things. It always amuses me how every school does the same thing in a completely different way.
I was surprised the first day when all of the students who were to be picked up traveled to my room for the last 20 minutes of the day. This was approximately 70 students.
A few months ago I was informed by another teacher that she had heard my room was going to be split into two in order to accommodate the upcoming standardized testing. I was going to be joined by the new math teacher replacing the retiring one in order to put a computer lab in the previous math room. When I heard this news, I went straight to my Vice Principal who referred me to the Principal. The rumors were true.
As if it wasn’t enough to move my classroom from one end of the county to another, change from first to sixth grade, and get used to all of the new policies and procedures at a new school, now five weeks into the year my classroom will be cut in half.
When I returned from Thanksgiving break, I was greeted by a room with a temperature of 49 degrees. After further inspection, it came to be that I would need an entirely new unit. I was given two small space heaters and my students were permitted to wear all winter attire to class. There were no other classrooms to locate to (hence splitting the room into two). The best solution was for me was to take my classes to other teachers’ rooms during their planning periods or lunches. No other grades have schedules that align with ours, so this made it a little challenging. I was so blessed by wonderful teachers who lent me their classrooms and resources. Their kindness was overwhelming. The heat was back on when we returned from Christmas break.
In the midst of all this, we were being told when the room would be divided into two. The first was that it was to be done over Thanksgiving break. The next was that it would be finished when we came back from Christmas break. The move finally happened last Thursday. Her students were told to pick up their desks and carry them to my room. The classroom went from looking like this…
To this…
One side is math, and the other side is science. We taught the first few days without any separation. On Monday we received our “curtain” (three king-sized sheets held up by binder clips on a cable). Our principal was kind enough to come in over the weekend and put this up for us. We even got to pick the colors. The rest of the school is based off of the open-classoom concept, so the students are used to learning in clusters. The curtain did help with some of the distractions.
Today it fell. I’m hoping it will be fixed soon.
Although it has been a crazy semester, this is what I am choosing to take away from the experience: I am blessed with some truly amazing, kind people in my life.
The staff at the school was in constant support. They were willing to lend me their classrooms. I got sweet notes in my mailbox assuring me that it would be ok. I was offered a shoulder to cry on several times. A few helped us make the move to joining classrooms. They moved furniture. They shared resources. They hung curtains. They lent heaters. So many offered kind words of support.
I truly can’t thank them enough.
Today we started a new semester. Bring it on!
Amy
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Rainy days and Thursdays
Getting into my new classroom has proven to be a bit of a challenge. I went to the school to see the room before I went on vacation. It was, of course, completely bare. Even though I know I will only be in the room for a year, I can’t teach in such a bland environment.
The day after I returned from Nashville I went to my old classroom and with the help of my mom and grandma I successfully moved everything out. We took it to my parents’ storage building for me to sort through. There is such a vast difference between first and sixth grade that the majority of my materials will be kept in storage.
Monday I made a trip to my new room with a few of my belongings. I was surprised to find the custodial crew mopping my floor. They informed me that it would be waxed on Wednesday and that I would not be able to do anything until then.
Thursday morning I went back to the school to ensure that my room was ready before I loaded up my car full of stuff. I peaked in the room from outside and no one was there. I walked into the building and to my room to find the custodial crew waxing the floor. They told me the room would be finished in an hour, but I was welcome to start working now. I told them I was going to get my things and return.
I went to my parents’ storage building, loaded my Jeep FULL on my wonderful teacher things, and returned to the school. It was then that I saw the “Wet Wax” signs plastered on my doors.
Lovely.
At least now I know that tomorrow is the official day for me to move in… or so I hope.
I don’t deal well when things don’t go the way I plan. I called my friend in dismay. She so kindly invited me over to help her and keep my mind off of my frustration. Her family has a large garden and they had nearly 70 ears of corn that needed to be shucked. We were on her patio and just a few ears away from completing our task when the sky opened up and unloaded on us. We decided to tough it out.
What started as a not so great day, turned around. It’s days like this that I am so thankful for my friends.
Amy
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Dream a Little Dream
The new school year is quickly approaching. This year I will be making the transition from teaching first grade to sixth grade. I will also be at a new school. I spent the whole day Thursday moving my classroom. It took five SUV loads. Thank goodness my mom and grandma were also there to help. It’s a big move in more ways than one.
I realize that my next post was meant to be about my vacation, but that was before I woke up shouting at 4:30 this morning. I was having a dream about my first day of school and it wasn’t going so well.
The kids were gathering in the room to start the day. It was loud. The room wasn’t actually my classroom. As soon as they entered I realized I had nothing prepared. I had no lesson plans or paperwork ready to send home. The kids wouldn’t stay in their seats. In just a few minutes I had to confiscate an SLR camera and an iPod or iPhone (I’m not sure). The next thing I knew I was lecturing them, telling them to “grow up.” I woke up yelling “WHAT!?”. Then my husband responds “That got me too.” I thought he was talking to me. Nope. He was also talking in his sleep.
It’s now 5:30 in the morning on a Saturday and I am way too awake.
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Snow Day
Today I had the privilege of a snow day. When one of these days arises I feel such a pressure to get things accomplished. Today I did not disappoint.
I received a text from my dad asking if I could sign for a package that was to be delivered to his house around 1:00. Before this I was able to catch up on laundry, vacuum, tidy up around the house, enjoy a cup of coffee, and finish some school work. While I was in the shower I decided that I would order lunch from one of my favorite restaurants and pick it up on the way to my parents’ house.
When I arrive at their house there was a note on the door that the package had already been attempted to be delivered. The worker across the street noticed my frustration and told me thy I had missed him by minutes. I decided that I would find him. I tracked that poor man down an parked my Jeep in front of him so he couldn’t get away. My mission was successful and I retrieved the package.
I ate lunch at their house and my grandma stopped by to visit. She is always so encouraging and I love my chats with her.
After lunch I went home and continued to work on school work until Dusty got home. Once he arrived I had just finished my project for classroom, so I decided to paint my nails.
Dusty had worship team practice so I went over to my parents’ house for dinner. I always enjoy our Wednesday dinner time conversations.
I am finally in bed and very pleased with my day. Bring on Thursday!
Amy
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Comfort Food
I guess I have always had a tender heart. I cry fairly easily. My heart aches most for those who cannot speak up for themselves. This applies mostly to animals and children. As an elementary school teacher, I bring home the burdens of twenty sweet little spirits every night. Recently I have felt these burdens more so than ever for reasons I cannot disclose.
As I was sitting in front of the computer tonight, looking up some last minute Dr. Seuss activities, I had the overwhelming craving for cinnamon sugar toast. I don’t even know when the last time was I had this. It’s amazing how something so simple can make the world feel a little better.
I’m also very blessed with a patient husband. It is great coming home everyday to someone who is so supportive and willing to listen.
Amy
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What I Do
I am a teacher. Above all other things I feel as though this is my most defining label. It is what I dedicate the majority of my time, money, and energy toward. I love what I do.
I walked into my room the other day and realized how much I have invested in my classroom. Aside from the majority of the furniture and the textbooks, I have purchased everything. Every poster, crayon, bottle of glue, bulletin board border, pair of scissors, book, game, manipulative, piece of construction paper… the list goes on. I can’t make a trip to Target without stopping at the Dollar Spot. When it’s back to school time I spend excessive amounts of money buying classroom sets of everything.
My day is not over when the students leave. I spend time after school prepping my classroom for the next day’s instruction. Planning periods (or as I have heard some refer to as my “free time”) are spent in meetings, writing notes to parents, checking folders, sorting papers in mailboxes, and other various tasks that must be done before the students leave.
I spend my time while I’m not in school, grading papers and planning instruction. Aside from this, I spend time thinking about how to meet the needs of my students. I worry about their well-being. Are they cold tonight? Have they eatten anything? Are they safe? I have a passion for what I do. I hope this is evident to those around me.
Mr. and Mrs. Merrill 