Day One

I did it! I am a teacher.

My day was, overall, anticlimactic. Nobody threw a chair at me. The classroom time went well, in general. I think I will be able to follow my plans pretty closely. The big problem was logistics.

Lunch was overly complicated. The way lunch works is that I receive a class, take them to the cafeteria, and then eat lunch in the teacher’s lounge for 20 minutes. I then take my class back up to class for a full period of teaching. Of course, that full period of teaching didn’t happen today, because it was a half day, so we brought the kids back up to our room so they could get their things and sent them back to homeroom for dismissal.

At the assigned dismissal time, I took my class to the assigned dismissal location. I did some awesome “You’ll be have if you want to go home” management in the stairwell, which was complimented by a really cool teacher, and took them back to a different location, which was where we were really supposed to be. It then took forty-five minutes to shuttle kids onto their proper buses for the ride home. Since the school is in the temporary location, most kids ride the bus, which would not normally be the case. Much of dismissal time was spent chatting with other teachers, wondering how we could improve this process, whether this was a half day for teachers, and whether we had a faculty meeting after school.

I also learned, halfway through the day, that we need to line the kids up before we push them in the direction of their next class. Oops. I’ll have to try that tomorrow.

The kids were nicer than I feared they would be. No one was aggressive, although each class had a table of chatty girls in the back. I can deal with that later.

The classes were also much smaller than I expected. I know that the rosters are not set in stone yet (and far from it), but I caught a glimpse at an updated roster for my class this morning and was shocked to see 19 names on it! I ended up with 21 in my homeroom and 14 in my other class. At least it’s not 30! The way my schedule works, I see four of my five classes every day, and one of those is for a double period to facilitate labs. The only exceptions are Wednesday, when I only see three classes, and Friday, when I see all five. That leaves me teaching five periods every day except Wednesday (four) and Friday (six).

Of course, the half day did not mean we get shorter periods. It means we got (and will get tomorrow) full periods up until 1 PM, at which point we bring our class downstairs for dismissal. That means that periods 5-7 are forgotten. Today, I only got to meet two of my classes. I get to meet the other three tomorrow. I can’t wait.

The full periods meant that I could follow my initial lesson plan, which involved a quick ice-breaker (with varying degrees of success), and a lesson on entering and exiting the classroom. I made sure that the students knew if they mastered these procedures right away, I wouldn't have to keep going over them. Let's see how that one works.

For the time being, though, I think I have this thing under control. Now it’s time to rest my voice and drink some tea. I might even get running.