My First Week

I try to think of life as a journey. I know that there is an end goal, a prize at the finish, but it’s all about the daily steps you take to get there. You never know when you’ll finally get to the end, but that’s not for you to know. That’s not the point either. The point is to grow through the steps of the journey, to take each day and its challenges as they come and use them as a guide to a better tomorrow.

I’m grateful to have my family, my co-teachers, my girlfriend, my friends from Furman, and most of all, my faith in Jesus Christ in my life to give me a stable foundation from which to make the journey. I know that without any of them in my life, I would not be the man I am today. I would not know life’s lessons and challenges without my parents. I would not know unconditional love without Anna Kate. I would not have salvation by faith without my Savior. Life is not about living for the end or, as some might call it, preparing for the end. It’s about living for the journey, using the steps and the people in your life to become a better person. That way, when the end does arrive, you have no regrets, no second-guessing. All you have to do is receive the prize…

It’s funny, but I didn’t have anything close to this kind of perspective in my first few days of teaching. I only have it now because it’s the only chance I’ve had to sit down and work to process everything that has happened. From my first teacher workday on into this past Wednesday, all I could think about was, “What on Earth have I gotten myself into?” You can go to college and learn about all the theories and the strategies and management plans and Vygotsky and Skinner you want but none of that can prepare you, really prepare you, for the moment when you walk into the classroom knowing that you are the teacher. I can now say truthfully that you will not feel prepared for it. Not even close. You’ll feel like a scared little kid all over again, and the irony of that is you are surrounded by 20-25 scared little kids.

The first day is somewhat unique that way. Neither of you knows exactly what you’re getting into, and you’re both kind of playing around the edges at first until you get a better idea of what to expect. I suppose that’s why first impressions are so important, no matter what profession you enter. You want the party on the opposite side of you to get a positive vibe and see you at your best right off the bat. It may come relatively easy when the party is your principal, but it’s a tremendous challenge when it’s finally your students.

So, first week. Honestly, I can’t rate my first few days as either good or bad. In terms of grading myself, I would probably give Monday through Wednesday a “C.” There is just so much to learn, so many details to digest, memos and notes bombarding you at blinding speed. You never really know if you’re doing something right or wrong, sometimes not even when you get the seal of approval from your buddy teacher or your district mentor. They can advise you, sure, and pass out more comments than you know what to do with, but your students are not theirs. It’s up to you to make decisions on what kind of learning takes place in your classroom. They can only drop by for isolated periods of time, but you are in there all the time (or in my case, also for isolated periods, but just the same…). It’s a whirlwind of activity that, if you allow it, can leave you feeling drained, bewildered and wondering how in the world you can survive 179 more days just like it.

Honestly, if the students were the only facet of the job that mattered, I would most likely love it to high heaven. They are the reason I’m there, after all, and to quote Charlotte the spider, [their] success is to a small degree my success.” It’s mostly the logistics of the job that have my head spinning and unable to even take a breath after five days in the system. Every time I feel like I’ve come close to a stable perch, something comes along to sweep the rug out from under me.

We had a faculty meeting after our third day at which the new grade weighting system was unveiled. The Greenville County School District now wants teachers to schedule a minimum of twelve minor assessments (quizzes, homework, etc.) and four major assessments (tests, projects, etc.) to gauge student achievement for every quarter. I do not believe in leaving unit tests with the responsibility of determining how much a student has learned in nine weeks’ time, but that wasn’t all. Hillcrest wants us to do six major assessments. Six for each quarter. Minimum.

Our principal said this with the full expectation that many teachers would despise it, but for now, that’s how it is. And if we come up short, then we can surely expect to hear it from him. I’m still not certain that I understand why or how this assessment plan works, but it means I’ve got four out of my five periods already graded on two minor assignments. I kept it straight-forward, though. One was bringing the materials I require to class. The other was showing me their journal and what they had written thus far. As long as they had made some kind of effort, I gave them full credit. I didn’t expect anything along the lines of well-thought-out sentences or paragraphs at the outset. I just wanted them to get their feet wet in the process of writing.

I’m the kind of person who likes to have a plan. I will almost surely revise it later or go back to the drawing board, but as long as I have a skeleton plan in place, I feel like I am on much safer ground. It doesn’t seem like I’m scrambling around trying to throw things together and make it seem coherent; I’m not saying it was that, exactly, but that was just how it felt to me. The first five days were drawn up day-by-day, night-by-night. Before, I had little more than vague ideas of things that I wanted to do: rules and procedures were a given, obviously, but beyond that, I had to figure out how to make the first several days meaningful when my students didn’t even have their textbooks until the end of the week.

Looking back, it made me long for the fall semester of senior year when I had the luxury of four months’ time to prepare for student-teaching in my winter block. I had the whole plan laid out by the end of November, and while I drew up new short-term plans, it made me feel more at ease. That wasn’t the case this time, but fortunately, I wasn’t in it alone. Even the experienced veterans I’ve talked to have expressed their struggles with figuring out what to do that first week, let alone the week after. It really does help to know you’re in the same boat with everyone else because your struggles don’t seem so huge anymore.

Floating with my kind of schedule is not for the faint of heart. One of my buddy teachers said that the teacher (I won’t use the name here) who held my position before only lasted that one year at Hillcrest. The workload simply burned her out. Even the near-guarantee that she wouldn’t find herself in that predicament again the next year wasn’t enough for her to stick around. I don’t even know if she’s teaching anymore. For me, it’s a struggle just to get to my next classroom with enough time to catch my breath and get out the roll. Most of the students don’t mind, thank goodness; they’ve taken the whole “floater” thing in stride so far (but the first time I lose one of their assignments in the hallway, that’s out the window!).

I don’t like not having control of my classroom environment. I don’t know from period to period whether the teacher will be present or not, the state of the desks on my arrival, etc. Combine that with teaching two subjects (or two subdivisions of a single subject) to two different grade levels – woof. Every time a teacher walks by and asks how I’m doing, I’ve answered as honest as I can, given my state of mind at the time. “Hanging by a thread.” “I’m surviving.” “I still know my name and all.” They’ve laughed, and that lets me know such responses are all too common. But survival is the key that first week.

I’ve probably stopped making sense by now, and I want to finish sketching my skeleton for the upcoming week, so I’ll wrap this up. If I sound overly negative in this reflection, I apologize. I don’t mean to be. My last couple days, I can honestly say were “good” ones. I’m not making apologies nor am I second-guessing myself – at least not in my reflection. The job is tough, ten times tougher than I ever could have imagined, but it’s what I want to do.

I’ve had my share of private breakdowns this first week, and I’ve no doubt there’ll be more down the road, but right now, I have to keep it in perspective. No road was ever built without a few bumps and cracks in the surface, and they are only noticeable on the days when they’re all we choose to see. But look past those abrasions and the rest is shiny and smooth. Those are the times when you realize that every day successfully completed is in itself a victory, that for every wrong thing you did, you likely did five or ten things right without knowing it.

That’s the trouble I run into when I get too focused on the prize and all the things that keep me from reaching it, when what I should be doing is how all good and bad things are steps that can be daily stepping stones on my journey to growth.