The (Second) First Day

So yesterday was kind of a whirlwind.  I needed the night to process, reflect, and SLEEP.   

Starting with some positives, seeing kids after a while off was great.  They are so sweet, and the class I worked with over Leadership Week, when they came to writing class, was accusing me of being a traitor because I wasn't in reading class with them: not maliciously, of course, but kids don't know how to voice displeasure that you are not with them. I worked out with my mentor/their homeroom teacher that I could come in for advisory twice a week on my off periods.  Depending on what comes up, I am definitely going to try and make it to them once a week, at least, just to be involved and participate. 

The day itself was good. 

Classes were really good.  Kids were, of course, pushing things, but it is their nature.  The classes I was working with were great, they wanted to do things.  My end of the day class was a little bit of a hot mess, but only because it was the end of the day and we forgot the class was shortened so we didn't get to the crux of what we wanted to, but it was okay because the kids were silently reading and that was awesome, especially after the little bit of a tug of war to get them to do it. 

The only terrible part was recess.  It's two hours of awful.  We spend 80 minutes of it just walking to and from the park, and the remaining 40 minutes standing around.   It works out to each class walking to and back from the park for 20 minutes and having between 5-10 minutes outside to play.  It seems completely ridiculous.  One of the other TAs seemed just as boggled about it as I was, because it was just riling the kids up to bring them right back inside.  I'm just not about recess.

After the day was over, I didn't really have much to do, so I packed up and left around 5, but I headed to the front office to drop off the walkie talkie I needed to get (Ugh - they're such a pain to carry around) and the head of the Humanities department was there, and he asked about my day, and I let him know that the day itself was good, but I was having some problems with other things, and I got to talk to him about the frustrations I was feeling.  

I think the following quote really sums up some of the things I was feeling about my lack of responsibilities and seemingly productive work:

"Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I'm ready to be responsible for something, at the very least, and thus, I'm itching for something productive to do, but don't have it.   He asked me to send him an email summing up our convo and he would work on it.  It feels good to have someone else on it too, considering all of my attempts thus far have fallen flat.

But now (I just realized I forgot to put make-up on this morning. Yikes...) it's weekly goal time.  I think my goal this week is to survive, haha.  By that, I mean be flexible, do what I'm asked, and make my presence helpful to both the students and the teachers.  I don't really have expectations beyond that, except that I'm getting observed tomorrow, and that's it's own dilemma.  I've resigned myself to that one, however, and I know I am not going to score well.  I am hoping for twos, to be honest.  That's at least "developing." 

Now, onto Day 2.  Wish me luck!

Eye of the Hurricane

So, I'm reporting in the middle of my break from school.

Last week I took two of my New York State exams (I still have one more to take before I get my full conditional license).  The LAST (Liberal Arts and Science Test) was not so bad.  The writing sample was pretty easy, and the questions weren't too ridiculous.  I took it on the computer which was difficult, but I managed it because they gave us white board type things to take it with.  I used a TON of pages to take the test, but I wanted to make sure that I got stuff right.  Like I said, that one wasn't terrible.

The Social Studies CST (Content Specialization Test - I think that's right) was SO hard.  Like mind numbingly hard.  There were so many questions about economics and human geography.  I wanted to cry.  I used a ton of the pages on that white board packet as well.  The questions were just so difficult, I couldn't believe it.  The writing part, surprisingly, was super easy - which I was thankful for.  However, that won't matter much if I don't pass the whole test.

If I have to take it again I will be seriously lost.  Not only is it an expensive test, but it takes a ton of time (I was in the testing center for almost five hours for both), and there are limited dates.  Also part of this is the fact that I have to take another test in addition to those, and I won't know the results for a month.  If I don't pass, I won't be able to apply to graduate school because I won't have my license, and then I won't be able to be in the teaching corps anymore because I won't be filling the requirements of being a member.

It's so stressful.

I had lunch with a friend from UTC and hearing how she and her co-teacher have set up a relationship was so awesome, but kind of disheartening.  She is viewed as equivalent to the teacher, she teaches full parts of the lessons, and has it together in so many ways.  I'm still struggling with figuring out where my role in the classroom is and how my co-teachers view me/utilize me.

That brings me to the biggest anxiety of all: I have two observations this month, one in the first week of school.  I'm not lead teacher in my classroom, so I know I won't score very well because we're being evaluated on the Danielson rubric and it's really clear about the expectations it sets up for the evaluation process, and some of the categories just don't even apply to my position right now, so I can't score well on them.  I recognize that I cannot start strong.

I do not know everything, I cannot be anything other than basic or developing at this point, really, but that doesn't mean it makes me feel good.  I just wish I could be stronger.  I wish I could be better.

As someone who has always tied her self worth to the numbers on a rubric, or the grade on a transcript/report card, the idea of failure is so difficult to swallow.  I hate failing.  I know I have to work with what I have and do my best with the things I can do... I've never been distinguished as a bottom member of a pack before... I've always been in the front, a leader.

I won't be that now.  I'm going to suck.  I'm going to suck really hard.  And then I have to be okay with how much I suck and keep going.  I've never been good at that.  Usually, when I suck at something, I give up, and I'm not allowed to give up here.  I don't really want to give up.  I just know it's going to hurt, and I have to prepare to deal with that hurt.  I just have to keep telling myself that.

I'm reminded of the AA motto:

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, 

The courage to change the things I can, 

And the wisdom to know the difference." 

Maybe I should write it on my arm for the next two weeks...

Finding more of a Place

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.