Saturday, November 10, 2007

Last day....

In my excitement to write about Fanksgiving I forgot to mention another important event that happened yesterday....it was my student teacher's last day. Sort of. It was her last day of full take over, and we thought it might be her last official day, but then her supervisor counted the days differently than us (she started later with her count) so her last day was going to be Wednesday. But, now she got hired to be a long term sub in our school....so it looks like Friday might have been her real last day.

That's my long-winded way of telling you that I had two weeks of doing absolutely NO teaching, or planning, or preparing, or copying....and now I am back. To doing everything. Without the extra set of hands that I've had since the beginning of September. With twenty five third graders.

Slightly nervous? Yup. Obviously, I know I can do it.....I'm a teacher, and I've had this many students before. But to go from nothing to everything....it's going to be like the worse culture shock EVER.

I'm also anticipating some clean up work....see, the thing about having a student teacher is that they aren't quite you. They do a lot of the things you do--teach the curriculum you give them, adopt your classroom management system and even start to talk like you. But they still aren't you. My student teacher, as amazing as she is, has let my kids get away with some things that I won't tolerate. Talking all through writing workshop. Leaving the classroom a mess before going to lunch. Talking in line before they even walk out the door. Getting up during a mini lesson. Nothing earth shattering, I know....but enough that for the last week and a half my emails to a colleague have consisted of "I want my class back because...." So, now I have some work to do. Some exhausting, time consuming, frustrating-because-I-don't-want-to-do-this-in-November work to do.


But I am excited to teach again. It's awfully hard to be a teacher and not be teaching. It's REALLY hard in fact. So, at least I get to do that again.


I'm sure on Monday night, my post will be all about how exhausted I am. And how HARD it is to be a third grade teacher. But, for now, I am excited about having my kids back again.

1 comment:

Kim Tracy Prince said...

But look at you! YOu successfully delegated your class to someone else and I remember how nervous you were when she started. When my kids are in school I hope they get teachers who care as much as you do.