Moving to the Delta!

Hey all, this is my post from last week, which never actually made it to my blog. A new one yet to come! :)

Well, this is my LAST free weekend before school starts! I report for three days of training starting Monday, and then students arrive on Thursday! Within the span of just a few minutes, I go from extreme excitement to a near nervous breakdown as I contemplate what awaits me this week. I think part of the problem is that I have had a lot of time to think about the gravity of starting my first year of teaching; when I started Institute, I quite literally jumped right in. I never once had a moment to stop and completely comprehend what I was doing, so the transition didn't really exist. The mentality was, just do it. Don't take time to think about it!

But since I have returned from Houston, the start of the school year has been playing a major role in my musings. Sure, I had to find a house and move in, and I got to enjoy a wonderful visit from my parents, but ultimately I was always in the community where I would be teaching. There was no separation of being in a different state or a different town. Everything I have done has somehow been in preparation for school. I think I feel excitement whenever I manage to recover my Institute mentality of, just get up there and teach. Don't over-think it. Well, I can safely say now that I am exhausted from weeks of over-thinking it!

I suppose I used the term "free weekend" pretty lightly: my major goal this weekend is to figure out just how I am going to teach for an entire school year. I am literally swimming in resources: my students will receive 4 textbooks and 7 workbooks for language arts ALONE. I have a textbook and workbook for social studies as well. I also found my predecessor's lesson plans from the disaster zone that is my new classroom, and I have a copy of the pacing guide from Jackson Public Schools. I haven't a clue where to start, and TFA has deeply ingrained in me the urgency of teaching. There is no time to waste while I try to figure out what I am going to do; I need to hit the ground running. If I mess up, there won't be any penalty for me, but it will have HUGE consequences for my students. The pressure from TFA and the school principal is intense, but I also suspect, given my well-established modus operandi, that much of this pressure is self-inflicted.

Even though that realization doesn't make me feel any better, I do take a modicum of comfort in the idea that one particular personality trait might finally come into good use. My high school guidance counselor once responded to a recommendation question that my greatest weakness was the fact that I held others to impossibly high standards, since I held those same high standards for myself. Essentially, I expect as much out of others as I do out of myself, which meant people would often disappoint me. Now, however, I can hold my students to the same high standards I have for myself, and I can use those expectations to drive my students to success. After all, how many times have I heard that sometimes all it takes is someone to hold students accountable and to believe that they can achieve so much more for themselves than what they have previously settled for? I hope I can use my high standards in a positive way this year, if nothing else.

At this point, I have spent three days working on my classroom. It would be an understatement to say my room has been a challenging near-disaster--the teacher before me retired after 30-some years of teaching, and so she left nearly EVERYTHING from those 30 years. That equates to a lot of great resources, and an overwhelming amount of pure junk. The custodians were appalled at just how much came out of that room, and how much is STILL coming out of that room. But I am excited at how much I have managed to do with the space with a little creativity and a huge garbage bin. Though I am not quite finished, I have really managed to make the classroom my own, and I can't wait to fill it with students!

Probably enough for now; I have to lesson plan! This is the most stressful part, but once established, the days can progress smoothly. So wish me lots of luck, and feel free to send words of encouragement/advice/commiseration my way! :)