Ah yes....Something Occurred to me today

Teaching is exhausting. Let me back up.

School started Monday.

AWESOME things:

• For the first time since I started teaching I have been able to read novels for a few hours when I get home!!! Or take naps!
  
• My kids rock. I knew they would, but seriously...I think this year is going to be great!
  
• Because the district isn't evil in making us teach the curriculum web, we are actually getting together to collaborate on our own to improve the web lessons. It's actually quite awesome. I love collaboration and already the Foundations curriculum is starting to look better!
• I went home at 3:30 today. This is the first time I think I have gone home that early since I've been teaching. This was partly because I chose to go home instead of work more. But...this is still an accomplishment! I am learning to keep balance! I am learning that I don't always HAVE to work more. yay!
  

Not so awesome things:

• Jumping full-speed into teaching is never advisable. Much of the time I feel confused.
  
• I was at school Monday until 7 PM (THAT's NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN THIS YEAR!)
• I messed up homework the first week and confused all my students
• Last night I was up until 1 AM and got 4 hours of sleep, was rushing so much to get ready in time today after sleeping past my alarm that I could feel my heart pounding out of my chest, and felt like completely collapsing after my two 90-minute periods today.
  
• I have to change classrooms which makes me even more confused than I already am and makes me hate the "bean counters" even more.
  

So basically, my classes so far have been pretty good. The first day I was so excited about my lesson that I may have talked too much...but seriously, it's unnerving to have a class full of kids just staring blankly at you since you don't know them and they dont' know you. But, the strike has really done crazy things to my head. haha! Sunday we voted to go back to school and Monday morning at 6:00 AM we were all in the building hurriedly trying to piece together our first day from the materials we had left off in planning two weeks ago. Not only did I have to shift my brain back into "ok...this was the framework of how I wanted to lead kids into the class in the first few weeks...which means these lessons and these readings..." but I had to remember what classroom policies I was going to put in but my materials were still in sketchy shape from two weeks before....man, I'm still confused.

The kids were ready to be back but many of the teachers have been struggling all week just to remember what we were going to be doing. Plus, I realize it's our own fault for going on strike, but now all the first week things are being condensed and it's pretty overwhelming.

Day 1 we came in with little prep and no real mental preparation
Day 2 we had a staff meeting which meant no time to plan for the next day to get ourselves back into the mindset of, "Oh yeah...this is what i'm doing." So, the confusion lasted the next day.

Within here is switching classrooms. Not only remembering, "This is what I'm doing today," but "How many copies do I need? How many do I need in this classroom, how many for that classroom? Do I have time to copy and put them in the room I'm moving to before class? I need to remember to go to 2121 and write the agenda on the board. Am I forgetting something...crap...I did forget something. What should I do about that? How am I going to have to arrange things to be able to transfer back to 2103 quick enough to start class on time...should I leave the documents open or will that create technology problems when I plug into the docking station in 2103 like last time..."

AHHHH! Now you can see why I was losing my mind. In the process of my mind wandering off I messed up homework assignments and had to totally rewrite today's lesson plan, all 90 minutes of it...blech.

Next week is spirit week AND Parent Open House. That means that I will not get a chance to get ahead until at least the end of next week.

Tomorrow is going to be hell.

1st period--7:30 -- 90 minutes, Freshmen class in my own classroom.
Pick up all my freshman stuff and get it out of the way for when Ed comes in to my room 3rd.
Gather up all my Gov stuff (praying that I didn't forget anything for the 90 minutes...) and transfer myself, my open laptop with documents ready to go so that technology doesn't make me lose time, my clipboard with my lesson plan-supplemental docs-and teacher copies, probably a latte, and 2 huge laptop carts down the hall in "rushour traffic" to 2121. All in about 8 minutes.
3rd period -- hopefully start on time. Hopefully remember everything. 90 more minutes of walking and talking and having lots of energy.
Then, pick up all that stuff I lugged in, hopefully it's all back together after being tossed apart after I used it in class. Make sure I didn't leave anything, set it all back up again in my own classroom.
5th period -- do 3rd all over again, hoping nothing was left. 90 minutes
THEY LEAVE...I collapse... it's lunch and I had 3 classes straight through with no break.

Oh yeah...and I need to remember my seating chart, my barcode sheet and the textbook scanner...I'm gonna forget. I just know it.

Reflection: I really do like my kids...but I will be happy when my head is on straight again.

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