Lessons learned

Sorry about my delay in blogging. I think I'm actually suffering from a case of having too much to write about. I have so many thoughts floating around in my head, both serious and not-so-serious that I just haven't been able to focus. It takes a lot to run one of these blog things. ;)

Well, I've finally focused enough on one topic now. It is kind of a no brainer too. Year One of teaching is complete. Okay, so not really, officially until this Thursday, but we were all students. This last week is kinda fluff. I got my major stuff out of the way or will early this week (grades are due on Tuesday- since when are grades due BEFORE school gets out?).

So what have I learned? That I have a long way to go in order to be the teacher I want to be. At times this year I felt like I may be the worst teacher in the world. Part of this is because I do have a lot to learn. I need to be more descriptive in some directions, I need to hone lesson plans for when subs come in, I think I could go on and on with what I need to fix. In fact, a full 300 page novel couldn't probably fit all that I need to work on. That is great though...you need to learn and practice to improve. Now I know what needs to be fixed and can devote myself to that. It probably won't all get done though in Year Two. Which kind of bugs me. I'm not a perfectionist, but I am one who wants things to go exactly as I vision them. I worried myself sick this year over some lessons that were actually good but just didn't go like I thought they should. I almost had a nervous breakdown about being in charge of "Community Service Day" because I didn't think things would turn out. Guess what though? It did. Just like Homecoming came together, just like Job Shadow day came together. So that might be lesson number one: Have confidence in yourself and don't expect things to go EXACTLY as you planned...it will still turn out okay if you did the prep work.

Lesson number two would be that moving on is tough. When I add it all up; pay, workload, future of school, location...I see that my move to East Marshall is exactly what the doctor ordered. I think I will be very happy there. Problem is I will be leaving behind some great co-workers at Lineville that I got along with great. I will also be leaving behind some fun students. Nobody there can blame me for leaving, but it isn't easy saying goodbye- especially to people who became so close and treated me so well even though I was only there a year (actually nine months). Good thing about the age we live in now, those people are a keyboard away. I can email, call, even head on down there for different events.

Lesson three: teaching really is a pretty cool profession. It is nice to hear the graduates today tell me "good luck at East Marshall, we'll miss you" or having students run up wanting you to go on a ride at Adventureland with them. It is fun when a student comes into school with a news item they want to tell you because the year long pounding of current events is starting to get through. Or when we were at Adventureland some juniors of mine referenced something we had done in class as part of their conversation that I happened to overhear. It is the little things that count in teaching.

Have a good summer teachers and goodbye Lineville-Clio.