First Week of Teaching

"Welcome to English 10 and 11," I said. I learned names, asked questions, and after two days, suddenly had a brain ache from learning 200+ names. But I did it! And I remembered most of them. The first two days seemed fairly easy, but I was very concerned later in the week. After seeing cell phones about, a few glazed stares, and apathy and feigned apathy in the faces of my students, I realized that teaching can be hard! I had forgotten. I knew I would face some apathy, but experiencing it is much more keen than simply expecting it.

Though I had experienced this before, I have the convenient habit of forgetting bad memories; thus, every time something reoccurs, I can't remember the previous feelings, and so the fresh frustrations feel just as distressing the second, third, fourth, and hundredth time I experience them. Every yawn pierces my soul. Every sigh wounds my confidence. And each time I meet resistance, I have to remind myself, "the world isn't ending. Some people don't love English or school. And unfortunately, I am a new, imperfect perfectionist teacher."

Though, I love my students and am partially saying that because it helps me love them more, my goals for this week are:

1. Look for the positive in every class period, even the one that has somehow grouped together a batch of kids known as the "class of hell" among other teachers in my department. (Disclaimer: my colleagues are awesome; they just are up front and honest about certain realities.)
2. Look for the positive in myself; i.e., nix the perfectionism.
3. Abstain from killing someone.

I am most confident about the third goal. Hopefully this shows maturity in my less experienced, teaching career; or, it reveals that I'm new at this and haven't had my pet peeves peeved enough yet.

More to come.