Reflections

"You should keep a journal of your first year" said one of my co-workers. Done and done. The strange thing is though, of all the years of teaching, from what I've heard, your first year is the most stressful, time-consuming, overwhelming experience of the profession. So with what little experience and insight I have I shall blog.

I have yet to share with you the craziness of the past month. I completed my first set of report cards which, regardless of what is supposed to happen they took me a weekend to complete. I really wish that I could tell parents that your kid is fine--an effective strategy for 75% of my students. For the rest I just want to tell them that we have a lot of work ahead of us, and ask "what's been going on for the past 10 years".

The end of the first trimester provided me with a lot of reflective time. I've decided to modify some things, analyze test scores and push my students more. I'm also still getting acclamated to being in this professional position. I'm fine acting like a professional, but going to work everyday is wearing on me.

I do have to say, however, I couldn't ask for a better collection of people to work with. I think being at a dual language school draws a diverse collection of staff members with such interesting experiences. Or maybe that's just Las Vegas. Vegas is a lot like college in that way--it's not out of the ordinary to ask where someone is from--usually they're not originally from Vegas. Not even my students, most of them are from California or Mexico.

A.S. was in rare form the other day. While teaching math, he decided to erase what I was writing. I told him to sit down and he started writing on the board. I really want Tom Cruise to come into my classroom. I think I can convince him that ADD is a real issue. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty granola (vegetarian, reusable shopping bags, etc) but if my kid has ADD he would be on meds faster than Tom Cruise can jump on a chair. In a classroom of 24 people having a kid with severe ADD is no different than having a kid with schizophrenia. Oh, wait, we shouldn't medicate that either....

In honor of Jo: "But they're not here now, so we don't think about them"