Time: 8:31am
State of Being: stressed. full of anxiety
Song lyric in my head: A is for alligator. a-a-alligator
current desire: to be a wonderful teacher
where am I?: in the livingroom on the couch
what's that noise?: the AC
so I got my wish, and the foundation students are in a separate classroom. I'm now down to six kids. Seems like a dream. Seems easy. Yeh um no. The first day the kids were by themselves was wednesday. (They sprang this up on me on Tuesday. "so yeh. by the way tomorrow, your foundation kids will be in another classroom" not exact quote, but close enough) Then on Wednesday, the kids I had were just out of control. It was a new situation. They developed bad habits from the first month of school. And on top of that two children got into a screaming match with each other just as my assistant director came by my classroom. I made the mistake (caught in the moment) of shouting over them, and she heard it. ugh.
So in the beginning of the year, she told all us new teachers to come to her for anything. I had this gut feeling I shouldn't, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt. I told her that the kids were being unruly, and I needed help with my classroom management plan. And then she proceeded to talk down to me like a child, come into my classroom, move things around, move stuff on my walls around. And told me that my situation had to be "documented." I said to her "I really don't want this to reflect negatively on me as a teacher." she said "well it does. because if you can't handle six kids, blablablabla." I've since decided that I do not like her. And it takes a lot for me to not like someone. She had a lot more to say too. But instead of constructive criticism, it was criticism.
Now of course, I feel like a huge failure. I had a massive panic attack wednesday night. I cried for hours, I didn't sleep at all, and I'm having a career identity crisis. Maybe I shouldn't be teaching kindergarten/first grade. I miss my middle and high school students. As crazy as I thought they were, geees.
The school I teach at is a small private school. Most of the kids have some learning or behavioral issues. I have six kids, and at least five of them are on the austism spectrum somewhere. With one girl, this is her very first year in school. She doesn't even know what a letter is, let alone how to write one. I have another kid, who is just angry all the time. He talks back, he screams in class, he'll hit kids. He refuses to do any work, and still doesn't know his letters. I have another girl who's in first grade, but light years ahead of everyone else. She's on at least a second grade level with some subject, and third and fourth with reading. While I'm trying to teach two kids how to draw the letter, A, she's writing sentences with correct punctuation and apostrophes in "they're." I have another girl who thinks everything is a game, giggles, gets up out of her chair randomly and pretends to fly around the classroom. You try and give her consequences, and she will look up at you and laugh. The two other boys are extremely sweet, but very slow learners and workers.
I met my mentor the other day. Another teacher who works with the middle school foundation kids. I've met him before after school with random hellos and chitchats, but not officially. He seems really nice. He was in my class yesterday to "observe." He came once in the morning, when the kids were actually pretty good, and then in the afternoon, when they were a little nuts. I'm so embarrassed by my teaching strategies and my classroom management. He didn't really say much to me. I e-mailed him after school, but didn't hear back.
I've been researching Kindergarten class activities. Youtube videos. Classroom management strategies. Anything I can to make my class fun and enjoyable, but still managed. Starting monday, I'm starting completely over. But I have all this anxiety about failing. I'm so terrified about what the administration thinks of me. And I have no room to say they are incorrect.
Who was I kidding to say that I can teach Kindergarten? I love kids. With my heart and soul, and all I want to do is educate them. I really really want to teach, but I don't think I can do it.
It just sucks, because I can't even grasp onto any kind of optimism right now.
Part of me just wants to throw in the towel, and crawl back to my boss at wal-mart asking for my job back. And I'm 95% sure, she'll hire me back in a heartbeat. lol as much as I hated the pharmacy, I was damn good at my job.
Russ told me from the beginning that teaching this age would be tough, but my naive optimism said I could do it. He's scare to play the "i told you so" game. lol. But I was the one who said it first.
I want to go back to teaching middle school. I want to know if there is a way to request a higher grade level, lol, but that would probably reflect even more negatively upon me. I've known middle and high school teachers that say they would NEVER teach kindergarten. Maybe I can just job search around and see if there are any openings anywhere, apply, take interviews and if I get hired, say "hey I received another job offer. peace!" I would really miss all the teachers I work with, though.
ugh.
-mel-
9:04am
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