The Scholars Arrive and I have Anxiety

Today was the first day with students in the building.  I really like the kids, and I had a lot of great moments with them.  I have to read a book that a girl recommended to me before school actually starts on the ninth (it's called Stung by Bethany Wiggins - I read the first two chapters during prep today and it wasn't bad).  I know tomorrow I should push the kids more and not be quite so nice as I was today (it’s a set the bar high thing), but it’s easily worked on.  A girl even gave me a hug at the end of the day, and that was worth a million bucks.  It’s not from the kids that my anxiety is stemming, however.

I guess I just don’t know where to find myself, I don’t know how to define what I’m doing.  I mean, I do know: I’m training to be a teacher, but that’s not what my title says, and I’m floating between two different jobs, and I just don’t know where I fall or how I fall and where I’m supposed to be at any given time because I’m not counted like a TA, and I’m not counted as a full teacher.  It’s like nice, in some ways, to define what I am, but also incredibly overwhelming. 

I just want to know what I am and where I’m going and I don’t like not knowing these things.  I don’t like being out of the loop, and I don’t like how I don’t get to have ownership of things.  Nothing is mine, I just go for the ride, and it’s good, in some ways, but it’s also feeling very much like “helper” and not much like anything else.  In some ways, I’m so incredibly jealous of the new teachers.  And I’m usually lumped with them, but I don’t get the same things as them.  

I don’t know.

I love the kids, I love the people, I just hate feeling unstable.  I hate feeling like I don’t know who I am or what I am.  I hate not having the chance to stretch my teaching legs.  I hate feeling like I don’t have a place I belong.  

My mentor helped me set a goal for the week, of visiting every class I will be working with, and then spend time with them in an activity that isn't in the class I'm with them - I created the schedule right after work to assuage some of my anxiety.  It helped a little, but I guess it still doesn't make up for the fact that I still feel like I don't know what I'm doing and how I'm going to do it.  

I don't feel like one of the teachers I'm assigned to work with really wants my input at all, and I haven't even really gotten a chance to speak to the other because she just took the position.  

I just don't know.  I just have to be  open, flexible, and ready for anything.  Remembering integrity and commitment: I signed up to do this on their terms, not mine, and I must fulfill those obligations.  And also humility  I don't know everything, I don't really know anything, and that's why I'm not a classroom teacher yet.  I wouldn't be good at it, I wouldn't be effective.  I need to learn these things, and that's what I'm here for.