Yesterday and today have been SO much better than the first day. I actually added a quote to my computer that I think I'm going to change (it's on a sticky note on my desktop) a couple of times a month. For now, it is:
"The most powerful weapon on Earth is the human soul on fire." - Ferdinand Foch
When I was looking them up, it just stuck out to me, I had to use it.
Moving on to the really important stuff: I feel so much better about everything, and have been getting to know a lot of the students who I really appreciate.Some remind me so much of some of the girls from last year that it warms my heart to be around them. There are even a few boys who ring some familiar bells for me. I've been popping around different classes and things, trying to meet as many kids as possible, but kind of attached myself to one homeroom, to make sure that I was grounded in some kids. They're not on my "class" load, but I don't care - they've been amazing to get to know.
To share a cute story from today, I went on a tour with one of the seventh grade classes that I will be working with, and we were walking through where we go out for recess (which is near the school and I was not wearing the shoes for that to be a thing), but anyway, we were walking and one of the girls hear me laugh at something she said - my comprehension on some things in Spanish is much higher than my ability to explain anything - and she looked at me and was like "Miss, you Spanish?"
And I laughed harder and was like "Nope, I am so Italian it hurts." And she was like "Oh. Well, kinda the same. Just checking. ...Do you speak Spanish?" and I had to giggle, because it was so funny - and three days in getting some of the same stuff from last year is really comforting. It actually helped me really feel like I was at home.
I also got to handle a discipline issue with a student and helped him come up with a solution to make sure it didn't happen again, and I directed a group of students through the hall and was able to make them go back and do something again when it wasn't HSR (High School Ready) behavior. It felt really good to be able to do that. So, I'm starting to grow into myself a tiny bit here, I think.
Of course, that journey is not done: it's just beginning. We had a big talk in post-day reflection time about being yourself in the classroom and bringing your own personality to what you're doing, which is something I feel like I am starting to really do - I was doing it last year working one-on-one with students and now I have to do it moving from individual experiences to full classes, and that's hard, in some ways, because it takes a lot of self-trust, so we'll see how that part of the journey progresses.
I'm going to fill you in on weekly goal, since I'm including it in my tags, and I feel it's important. It's going well. I made my schedule about where I am going and when I am going there, and talked to the teachers I needed to talk to in order to get into their rooms. I'm going to spend Friday kind of floating around the 8th grade, seeing things and meeting students, and then tomorrow I have another writing class to sit in on. I spent a *lot* of time with one of the classes that I am supposed to be working with and have formed a couple of relationships with students that I think can carry through, but I have to continue working on that too.
That's all I have: a much sunnier outlook on everything than I did before, and I feel much better about it. Now, it's just the beginning, and we will see how it goes, but we'll keep track over the course of the year.
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