A Frustrating Day on the Job

"And when I count down from 5 to 1 you should be in your seats, mouths closed, looking at me. 5...4...3...2...1!"

::Everyone is still talking.::

Today was one of the most frustrating teaching days that I've experienced thus far. It wasn't that anything went terribly wrong or that one of my kids decided to give me attitude, it's just that...my kids are just too darn chatty!

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised: I mean, they do have me as a teacher! I just never imagined how darn frustrating it can be when trying to redirect the students' focus back to me. Regardless, I feel like 60% of what I'm teaching is continuously classroom management.

It's difficult. As a new, young teacher whose ambitions are nowhere short of "saving the world," balancing classroom management with "fun, creative, energetic ideas" is a huge challenge. I want the students to look forward to coming to school. I want them to know that the classroom is a safe place. I want them to experience learning as something fun. But I also want them to view their education as something very serious and meaningful.

Too many kids in the school in which I work have a "why should I care?" or "what difference does school make?" attitude. I want that attitude to change, yet I already fear the stress and burden of "pacing guides" and 4sight testings to keep up with, leaving very little room for creativity, flexibility, and well...fun.

Not only do I find the secret management tactics of whole group teaching tricky, I'm flabbergasted at the little bit of time teachers get to spend one-on-one with students. How can I teach a mini-lesson to a small group of students and have other students on task with completing another task? I find myself struggling to make time just so I can review basic math facts with students who need to review and learn the basic mathematical functions. In fact, I found myself shifting my entire schedule around today just because I recognized a group of students that were really struggling with rounding. (Too bad about pacing guides, these fourth grade students need to know their place value chart!)

It's ironic, though, how teaching can be both so frustrating and so inspirational. As I told my fiance Adam the other night, "each day that I continue to be frustrated, I'm likewise motivated to find new ways to reteach the concept or to retry management ideas. Teaching is such a great challenge, and finding areas that I struggle with motivate me to become better...for the students."

Sometimes I feel like I'm learning more than the students.

My biggest fear, I told my mentor, "is that I hope I'm not postponing the education of my students because of my 'first year goof-ups. The last thing I want is for my kids to enter 5th grade and be clueless."

In hopes of that not happening, it's back to the drawing board for me. How else can I teach place value? Rounding? Prefix? Vocabulary? Writing? Creativity, I need you now!

Keep reading for more classroom experiences!

Life Courses and Childhood Dreams

I'm always extremely discouraged to "start up" blogging again after I'm well aware when I take a hiatus. It reminds me that I'm extremely "human," not perfect by any means, and oh yes, effected by life's course of changes every now and then.

Nonetheless, here I am, blogging, and I am comfortable to now say that after a nine day road trip from the West Coast back to the East, diving into a first year teaching job the weekend after our return, searching and scoping out wedding venues, caterers. and entertainment, and moving back to Reading all within a short month, I feel like I'm "settling in." (And some people thought that making the transition from being a college student to "going into the real world alone was overwhelming!)

"Life" has surely taken its course in my life.

I suppose I can't be surprised, though. Life is always an adventure for my fiance and I. That's how we like it to view it anyway.

As I lay here in my Reading apartment-and yes, lay-I say lay because my roommate and I literally do not have any living room furniture to sit on yet (oh, that needs to happen, too?), I still cannot relish the reality of my now "school teacher" world. Three weeks ago I had my first "day of school." Monday I had my first "faculty meeting." Tomorrow I have my first "Meet the Teacher" night. The experience still seems to be beyond me. I cannot believe that I, Melissa Jaworski, am largely responsible for the academic progress of 19 students. Really, what was I thinking when I thought that I could have that much responsibility hanging on my shoulders?

Believable or not, being a school teacher is a dream that I've held onto ever since I was five years old. In fact, the day before my "first day of school," I told my mom, "I can't believe that tomorrow I'm going to be the person I dreamed to be since I was five years old."

Now, I'm not saying that I'm going to retire a teacher. I still have a very strong passion for vocational ministry, such as working within a church or for a para-church organization. I very well may decide to not teach after this first year experience. On the other hand, I may decide that I'll continue to teach for a number of years. Nevertheless, it's incredible for me to fathom the reality of fulfilling a childhood dream.

In fact, it gives me even more hope and inspiration for the children that I'm teaching. In 4th grade, I wanted more than anything to be a teacher, and now here I am, a 4th grade teacher.

When I reflect back on my journey towards "becoming a teacher," I'm reminded of all of the different stages that I passed through while remaining committed to my dream; teaching my stuffed animals at 5 years old, filing tests and quizzes for my elementary school teachers, deciding "teaching wasn't good enough for me" at 13, continuing to organize people and tasks in every opportunity available throughout middle and high school, struggling to decide a major in college...only to choose elementary education. I've had a lot of "twists and turns," a lot of changes and "I can't decide" moments, yet always, always, have I had the consistency of a small burning flame within me to...teach.

In fact, my journey reminds me of the well-known scripture in Jeremiah 19:11. It reads:

¹¹ For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Plans. Isn't it ironic how we, as humans, try so hard to create the "perfect plans"-1 day or 5 year-so that we can follow the steps that we believe lead towards a goal? And isn't it even more ironic, that during all of that time-being 5 and teaching stuffed animals to being 13 and not wanting to teach, to not deciding on a major in college, to getting a teaching job fresh out of college-that God has not forgotten me nor my childhood dream. "It's strange to believe that I'm actually doing the job that I dreamed to do since I was 5 years old."

Life-adventure- has a powerful way of allowing us to experience the faith of God.

Thanks, God...for life. For faith.






(*Note: I do realize that the last "sentence" is actually not a sentence at all, it's a fragment. I just recently taught my 4th graders about the characteristics of a complete sentence.)