My life has kind of been in turmoil for a while. After one cross country move last year, we've just driven back across the country. By car: Oregon-> New York-> California. By airplane: DC, Japan, Indiana, Ohio, and Arizona (and Oregon and New York a bunch). This is all in a 12 month time period. I wonder how many miles I've traveled. I think it's probably close to a world record.
I'm also undergoing the teacher licensing process in my 4th state! Woot! Soon I'll collect all 50 :). I would totally go for national board certification, but I'm not wise enough or anywhere consistent enough to go for that yet.
We moved back to the west coast in September because of a family illness. I left my job at the one-to-one private school abruptly and was actually looking forward to some time off. The private school was year-round so I was getting pretty tired. But of course, obsessive compulsive me couldn't stop checking craigslist and within 24 hours of arriving in San Diego I had a job interview at a charter school. I was really really nervous about not having a job plan when we decided to come spend some time in California so I was delighted at the prospect of a job so quickly. But it's in a classroom again with a lot of kids and I start tomorrow and I'm terrified.
It's been a year since I worked in a classroom with more than one student and my pitiful classroom management skills have completely atrophied plus my obsessive compulsive work ethic already has me fruitlessly planning lesson after lesson even though I have no idea where the kids are and will have to scrap all this work and start over.
Do the nerves ever go away? I wish they would. Everyone says I'm super lucky to have landed a job in late September/early October but right now I wish I could go back two weeks and kick my over eager, initiative grabbing, hopeful self and tell her to just CHILL!
But I am happy to be teaching in a classroom again, I am. And I will try to post more because now I'm legitimate.
I've been teaching for 19 years and I still have days when I feel nervous in front of the class. Usually when I am trying something new. Thanks for all of your fantastic posts and ideas btw. I am on here tonight to look over your exponent ideas again.
ReplyDeleteThank you! I'm now three weeks in and I'm feeling much more comfortable. I'm still nervous each Sunday night. But as I knew would happen, I've fallen in love with my kids. So even on days when they push me and I'm exhausted and exasperated, I leave school feeling like I'm doing good work.
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