Monday is the first day of classes. Students arrive. I can't describe how my body and mind feel. After two and a half months of Teach for America drills, five weeks of Houston Institute, four weeks of summer school teaching, one week of moving to a teacherage perched on a mesa on the Navajo nation, one week of staff orientation and after 24 hours of decorating my classroom this weekend, I am feeling rather numb.
Luckily, I don't start teaching until the 22nd. For Special Education teachers, this week is dedicated to going through reams and reams of paperwork, personal files and pulling children out to be tested. But I still have to confront children from kindergarten to eighth grade. I have to face my future students. I have to risk being mistaken for an eighth grader.
This doesn't feel like the first day to the rest of my life... or at the least the few years. I just know that I have had multiple dreams since moving to New Mexico about oversleeping and running to school in my bathrobe. I don't even own a bathrobe.
I also know that I dislike arts and crafts. They don't warn you that 40 percent of prepping before the school year consists of arts and crafts. I have cut more bubble letters and glued more banners than I ever imagined. They certainly don't ask you to build Word Walls or sparkly borders in journalism.
On the other hand, my classroom looks fairly good. My classroom motto? "Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever give up." It's as much for me as it is for the kids. I have nothing insightful to say on the eve of my first day, except that I'm scared. Luckily, I'm also not ashamed of it. I don't think I'd be a very good first-year teacher if I wasn't terrified deep down beyond the orderly classroom and fresh lesson plans.
Comments