Well folks, I'm back after a much-too-short summer break, and this time I'm at Sunset Ridge Middle School in West Jordan. We are going to keep this "First Year Blog" because I figure, I'm experiencing a new "first year" at a new school. This school is so different from my last one, and with both experiences there are pros and cons. Let me tell you about some of them:
You might remember that last year I didn't get the support I was expecting as an intern. I bounced ideas off of other teachers at my school, but I felt like I really didn't get any concrete help from the people in my school. This of course forced me to be resourceful and I was able to pick and choose great ideas from other schools, the internet, and my own creative mind. In case you are thinking it was perfect, let me just tell you how stressful it was. I of course have to teach the core standards and see my students' test scores at the end of the year to tell me how much they did or didn't learn. I worried that I wasn't teaching the tested standards. Well, even with all that stress, I survived and LOVED teaching. It was so fun and I really enjoyed coming up with creative and meaningful unit plans and projects.
This year, I am at a school that believes strongly in collaboration, PLC (professional learning communities), and teams. I basically have planned out every day from now until January, and I have supportive teachers who help me know what I need to teach and how I should do it. It's very helpful. It also, unfortunately, makes me feel like I'm being stripped of my creativity as a teacher. I'm not going to lie, my first cry of the school year was after a planning meeting, before school had even started, when I felt so overwhelmed and so uninvolved in my own classroom planning. I yearned to feel some sort of ownership over my classroom and the things I would be teaching. This first week has been alright and I already really my students (most of them, anyway. haha), but I am going to have to once again be creative and find a way to include my style/personality into my classroom teaching.
So, every school year brings new challenges. I am excited to face those challenges and to see myself, as well as my students, grow and progress. I will keep you updated weekly on this blog, so please visit often :)
