It’s the first day of my sub-first-year teaching experience. I call it a sub-first-year because I am lower than a first-year teacher. I am an intern. At least I’m not a student teacher, but still— I have almost no idea what I am doing and yet I’m in charge of the education of about 110 children. My foot hurts, I have menstrual cramps, and my head feels as though it has been trampled on by a herd of angry elephants.
Last week I went to a million meetings. Everyone wants to train and advise us. There were new teacher meetings, full staff teacher meetings, English teacher meetings, school meetings, district meetings, meetings with our mentors, meetings with our BYU faculty and even meetings that we organized with each other (not because we haven’t had enough yet but probably because all we really know how to do effectively is meet.)
I stayed at the school each night last week until at least 7pm. Once I went home for dinner at six and then drove back to the school and stayed until 10pm. On Saturday I worked from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon without a break. We had been told that teachers weren’t supposed to be at the building that day because floors were being waxed, but I got permission from the custodian to come anyway on the condition that I stay in my room all day. There were periods between layers of wax that I might have been able to leave the room but I wasn’t sure when they were and so I didn’t dare walk out at any time for fear that I might ruin the floors on accident. Around 11am I realized that I desperately needed to go to the bathroom and spent the next five hours dancing around the classroom. You never fully appreciate how hard is to type while doing the potty-dance until you’ve been at it for five hours. Then try it with a surgical boot on one foot.
At length, the first day arrived and I made it to my classroom a full two hours before school started and role-played my lesson three times. Thumping my way through the empty aisles, holding my lesson plan in front of me, and instructing my invisible pupils, I felt my confidence beginning to grow. When the bell finally rang for my first class I stood outside the door with a jar of pencils, offering one to each student who came in and directing them to look at the seating chart to find their desks and begin the first assignment. I followed my script perfectly, the kids were excited to be there, and I felt wonderful about my class.
The second block of students was more difficult. I hadn’t thought of a plan as to how I would place the bell work on each desk, greet students and help them with the seating chart all at the same time. Before I knew it, kids were pouring into the room, looking for the bell work on their desks that wasn’t there yet and playing musical chairs to find their seating assignments. I began to feel a little frazzled, but hurried to establish order as quickly as possible. To make things worse, I had decided after my first class to experiment with a different order of activities for the second group of students. Although it went alright, I didn’t feel as in control of the group as I did the previous class and I could feel my fragile confidence beginning to break down. Fortunately, by the end of the period, I felt as though I had the full attention of the group and gained their cooperation and obedience in concluding our activity and following directions. Big sigh of relief.
As my final group of students arrived I had the classroom prepared and set up for them as needed. This group seemed to lack almost all energy whatsoever. I could tell they were exhausted from their day, and so was I! My bad foot was aching from standing and walking on it all day and I could feel my brain getting fuzzier with every question the kids asked. There were problems with the seating chart I had prepared so carefully the night before because students had already begun to alter their schedules and so it was still somewhat difficult to get the class organized. I wondered if it was worth starting with a seating chart after all. Discussing the disclosure statement went much longer in this class than in the others and the students seemed offended by every sentence that was written. Some kids had their heads on their desks at this point, while others insisted on raising their hands and asking for details on every word of the document. I felt bad that it took so long and we didn’t get to do any fun activities to get to know each other like the other classes did. Without doubt, some of my kids left my class feeling like they had a teacher from hell and that it would be the hardest year of their lives, and that’s not how I wanted them to feel! I should have deferred all the questions they were asking to Thursday when we are going to go over classroom expectations in more detail, but at that point I think I was so exhausted that I just couldn’t even think to do anything except the most obvious and answer their questions immediately. There could be worse things, however. They could think I’m a pushover—which I am. I just pray that they don’t find out.
Tomorrow will be my second day and I plan on arriving to school just as early and staying most likely until 9pm again. But don’t worry, I have a plan: Tylenol.
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