Teacher Says...
I began teaching within the school district that I grew up attending, and it is amazing how it has transformed my life. Does that sound too dramatic? Perhaps so, but I come home from work now with a smile, mostly positive things to share about my day, and I wake up each morning eager to begin it. Best of all, I have a more regular paycheck again. They have been calling me every single day since I began, and I am finding I actually have to turn down assignments to keep my body going.
Yes, I am exhausted at the end of the day. Yes, I find I am ready to fall asleep by eight (though of course it never ends up being that early). But it is a very good exhausted. I don't have endless hours in the day to obsess and stress over everything like I have been not that long ago. I feel like I can actually find some peace to the day. I feel more productive, more useful, more interesting, and more confident that I am actually a functioning being again.
I can actually teach the kids, show them my silly side, and not spend 90 percent of my energy trying to control a mob. The kids are respectful and don't talk back to me or others, like the students did in the other school systems I've been teaching at this year. I don't have to babysit them in the halls, and they can actually be trusted to go where they say they're going.
It's also just fun. After a reading discussion with some fifth graders, girls were talking about reading Twilight, and they thought it was so cool that I had just finished reading it too and saw the movie. With the bit of extra time remaining, we shared what we loved (or didn't) about the book and debated whether the movie was any good in comparison.
It's a little surreal to be teaching a class of fifth graders, however, to discover one of the students is the son of a guy you went to school with. Am I really that old??? A couple of my former classmates are teachers, so it's cool to see their familiar faces in the hallway. Some of my teachers are actually still teaching there, and my old middle school band teacher actually remembered my name--I was duly impressed.
Speaking of teachers remembering me, a really cool Facebook moment: about a month ago, I got an email from my first- and second-grade teacher Mrs. Augusta. She said she found me on there and wondered if I remembered her. Of course I did, she was one of my favorite teachers of all-time! I was tickled by the fact that she remembered how funny I had found the experience of riding in my mother's cousin's brand-new, fancy car that said, "The door is ajar," whenever a car door had been left open. I had forgotten all about that until she reminded me.
I have so many memories of Mrs. Augusta, and I had actually been trying to find out what had happened to her in recent years. I never knew she was still teaching, in fact, still a second grade teacher at my town's school. She had helped fuel my love of education at such an early age, encouraging me to help my classmates when I was done with my own work. She didn't hold me back when I got ahead, and she praised me when I excelled. I told her she was a big inspiration for why I teach today.
I also shared how she planted the seed that I could one day be a writer. I wrote my first story about a girl with magic sneakers in her class, and the encouraging words from Mrs. Augusta made me so proud to have entertained her that I knew I wanted to do that again. I still have that story, with her kind words scrawled across the top, filed in my bedroom closet.
I hope I will get a chance to fill in for a primary school teacher one of these days so I have an excuse to stop by and visit with her, as she asked me to. Besides, I have some friends who want me to come teach their little ones there as well.
Yes, I am exhausted at the end of the day. Yes, I find I am ready to fall asleep by eight (though of course it never ends up being that early). But it is a very good exhausted. I don't have endless hours in the day to obsess and stress over everything like I have been not that long ago. I feel like I can actually find some peace to the day. I feel more productive, more useful, more interesting, and more confident that I am actually a functioning being again.
I can actually teach the kids, show them my silly side, and not spend 90 percent of my energy trying to control a mob. The kids are respectful and don't talk back to me or others, like the students did in the other school systems I've been teaching at this year. I don't have to babysit them in the halls, and they can actually be trusted to go where they say they're going.
It's also just fun. After a reading discussion with some fifth graders, girls were talking about reading Twilight, and they thought it was so cool that I had just finished reading it too and saw the movie. With the bit of extra time remaining, we shared what we loved (or didn't) about the book and debated whether the movie was any good in comparison.
It's a little surreal to be teaching a class of fifth graders, however, to discover one of the students is the son of a guy you went to school with. Am I really that old??? A couple of my former classmates are teachers, so it's cool to see their familiar faces in the hallway. Some of my teachers are actually still teaching there, and my old middle school band teacher actually remembered my name--I was duly impressed.
Speaking of teachers remembering me, a really cool Facebook moment: about a month ago, I got an email from my first- and second-grade teacher Mrs. Augusta. She said she found me on there and wondered if I remembered her. Of course I did, she was one of my favorite teachers of all-time! I was tickled by the fact that she remembered how funny I had found the experience of riding in my mother's cousin's brand-new, fancy car that said, "The door is ajar," whenever a car door had been left open. I had forgotten all about that until she reminded me.
I have so many memories of Mrs. Augusta, and I had actually been trying to find out what had happened to her in recent years. I never knew she was still teaching, in fact, still a second grade teacher at my town's school. She had helped fuel my love of education at such an early age, encouraging me to help my classmates when I was done with my own work. She didn't hold me back when I got ahead, and she praised me when I excelled. I told her she was a big inspiration for why I teach today.
I also shared how she planted the seed that I could one day be a writer. I wrote my first story about a girl with magic sneakers in her class, and the encouraging words from Mrs. Augusta made me so proud to have entertained her that I knew I wanted to do that again. I still have that story, with her kind words scrawled across the top, filed in my bedroom closet.
I hope I will get a chance to fill in for a primary school teacher one of these days so I have an excuse to stop by and visit with her, as she asked me to. Besides, I have some friends who want me to come teach their little ones there as well.