Two Days of Teaching In...

...and it has been an adventure!! I spent the first three days of this week going through professional development...again. Monday we went to an inspirational talk at the high school with the entire district, which actually did turn out to be pretty inspirational. By then, I was so bogged down in the details of long-term plans and big goals and cleaning a classroom and, well, not freaking out about 27 faces staring up at me all day, that I was getting quite discouraged. I have always found it to be difficult to start something new and unfamiliar, but something about teaching little people for their first high-stakes testing year seems like a little more pressure than usual.

When I left the school Wednesday night, I felt fairly satisfied with my classroom. I had worked for six days to get it ready, throwing away an impossible amount of old materials (including a huge world map that had the Soviet Union on it...yeah) and probably over-thinking every organizational decision I ever made. But everyone who walked into my classroom was pretty impressed with the transformation and with the atmosphere I had created. But honestly, my classroom was a little pocket of preparedness within a school of chaotic disorder. All of the teachers who had been nowhere in sight for the entire summer and who had left promptly at 3:15 from professional development were suddenly cleaning out their classrooms and decorating for the new school year. The areas that had previously been havens of readiness had transformed into the same mess that still existed outside my classroom. Rather than getting closer and closer to looking like a real school, Oliver Elementary was a few steps away from being a garbage dump. I walked away at about 5pm, shaking my head and wondering if I would witness the effects of a miracle the next morning. A small part of me had my doubts.

But I have to say I was pleasantly surprised when the school was in pristine condition first thing Thursday...as long as you didn't look out the side exit doors to the mounds and mounds and mounds of...yeah....

In any case, the day started off in complete disarray, just as it should. I didn't expect to be entirely informed in the day's agenda, but a little more guidance may have been helpful. The school did not open until about 10 minutes before teachers were told to arrive at 7 (I was there at 6:30), which was a full 20 minutes AFTER the first students started arriving. For the next two hours, students trickled into the cafeteria with parents and family as we waited for the opening welcome from Principal Montgomery. At the end, each of the teachers got on the microphone to call his/her roll and line up the class of students. I was proud of myself in that I had asked SEVERAL teachers for name pronunciations beforehand so that I would not completely embarrass myself in front of hundreds and hundreds of people, and I managed to set an authoritative tone for my students. I gave explicit directions for lining up as I called names (something many of the veteran teachers failed to do, and more chaos ensued), and I lined them up outside my classroom, giving them even more stern directions, all while their parents looked on. Talk about an introduction to teaching! There is nothing more intimidating than instructing a child on behavior expectations in front of the child's family, trust me on that one.

Instead of switching the third grade classes at some point during the day--as I had wanted, I ended up keeping my homeroom all day. It took forever to set up the rules, the big goals, and just a small portion of the procedures I wanted in place, and I hate how long it is still taking me to get comfortable with names. But by the end, I think I had a very successful first day of school. The intervention specialist, who observed for the last half hour of the day, complimented me on winning the students' respect and setting a positive tone. Every veteran teacher who saw me that day praised me on what they felt was a solid start and offered continued support as I got even further into the school year. I will be the first and loudest to always acknowledge how WONDERFUL all of my fellow teachers are at Oliver. I have already heard horror stories from other schools in the district and in the Delta, but I am beyond blessed in the support and welcome that I have received.

But I digress. If you had asked me at 8pm on Thursday night, I would have told you that my first day failed to live up to my high expectations and I would have been discouraged by the start of this pivotal year. But that was BEFORE Friday happened, and BEFORE I met my other third grade class...

I started out day two with my same homeroom, and I worked hard to correct the flaws I had perceived from the day before. I wanted to make sure I did everything right, because I do NOT want to be in the worst-case-scenario videos they show at Institute. I wanted to be one of the success videos if I ended up in any video at all (not to say that this is an inevitability, just that it is a small nightmare I have occasionally...). After a couple hours, I was running out of activities and I was anxious to meet the other class. So Mrs. Johnson and I did our best to attempt our first class switch of the year. It wasn't a complete failure, even though my homeroom performed miserably in the "quickly and quietly cubby procedure" we had been practicing all morning. I did, however, catch Mrs. Johnson giving a warning to her homeroom students: "Now listen up boys and girls. Ms. Cook comes to us after teaching in Texas. They don't play down in Texas. Ms. Cook don't play, so you better be on your best behavior with her, cuz she will get you."

I could have kissed her for scaring her kids, and giving me the inadvertent confidence boost I needed to come out strong with the new batch. So let me tell you, my introduction to Mrs. Johnson's homeroom was pretty phenomenal. I don't mind admitting it, especially since Principal Montgomery got to observe the best of it, and especially since, well, the success did not last very long. This group of kids was much larger than mine--25 kids rather than the 19 I had taken for granted--and they are frightfully unused to structure. Sure, there were several, as usual, who hung on my every word and aimed to please me beyond all other earthly concerns, but I was honestly troubled and surprised by the lack of respect these kids showed for one another and for education in general. I have never seen such aggressive testosterone in an eight-year-old, nor such blatant apathy. I sit here now still reeling from the reality of the challenges that will greet me on Monday and that will continue to haunt our progress this year. Everyone has warned us of the obstacles, but I could help but hope with every fiber of my naivete that my class would be the exception. The truth I should have expected all along is a little difficult to handle.

But when I rightfully put the first two days into perspective, I have to say that I am THRILLED by what awaits me. When my homeroom came back for the last hour of the day, they greeted me with hugs, warmth, and excellent behavior. All I had to do to restore order was put my hand on the top of the "caught being good" bean jar. They dreaded the moment they would lose any of those beans. The other class, in contrast, had lost every single bean that they could have hoped to gain for weeks...

I have already learned some important lessons. The good kids in both classes remind me why I love teaching, and the bad kids remind me of why I have to keep trying. Every child deserves my absolute best each and every day, and every child to have a learning breakthrough. In my room, I have displayed my iceberg poster that craftily shows the amount of ice above water, and the enormous depths we never get to see and we often forget all about (sometimes with titanic consequences...haha...ok, bad joke). I told my students that they are all icebergs. They have gigantic potential that we have not yet gotten to see, but each day we are going to work hard to uncover it. Above the poster I hung the words, "Show your potential." This summer I got to see just how true this analogy is. My mission is to find the iceberg in even the most unwilling of students this year.

On my parent survey, I asked the students' families to tell me about their child's strengths, in whatever form that may take. I had some who commented on a student's warm personality or enthusiasm for learning. I had one who responded with a question mark. Even if it takes me all year, I will make sure that that parent knows EXACTLY how to answer that question.