Last I updated I was preparing to enter into my first year teaching. I was so excited to be close to my family, I was so thankful that I had a job, and I was SO scared that I was going to completely fail at and hate my job!
Luckily, I was right to be excited and thankful because it was the best year of my life! I cannot believe how comfortable and natural teaching came to me. Going to school I was always so nervous that I was in the wrong major because I never felt good enough to teach English. I was always such a self-doubter and I regret that so much! Teaching was so amazing and I have no doubt in my mind that my Heavenly Father put me on this path!
I think part of the reason I enjoyed life so much also had to deal with the fact that I had one of my best friends with me every step of the way! My sister Erica also taught at the same school and we were able to experience everything a first year teacher has to go through together! Teaching is hard work! You put in way more than forty hours a week not to mention the mentally and physically draining job it is to teach middle school students. Having someone who completely understood what I was going through and feeling the same way was so comforting. We were comfortable around each other and we just understood!
Having one year under your belt in a teaching career is huge! The first year is extremely stressful. You start knowing nothing about the school routines, procedures, learning/adopting the school curriculum and just being the newbie at the school and hoping your students don't eat you alive! My first year was certainly different than that of others because I was something called a "traveling teacher." What this means is that because our school was so overgrown we had way more students than we had room to have classes necessary, so I literally traveled/moved to a new classroom for each class period to teach. It was so stressful! I didn't get my own classroom, I didn't get to decorate (which if you know me you know I love to do) I didn't get solid classroom routines for my students which made classroom management really difficult. Luckily my second year I get a classroom! I get to teach what I love and work with AMAZING teachers! Although my first year, for lack of a better word, SUCKED! I still grew a lot and gained amazing confidence that because I was challenged I came out so much stronger!
Preparing to go into a second year I am actually enjoying my summer! I am not stressing about lesson plans or trying to figure out how I am going to travel or what that would look like. Now I get to plan decorations, and fix my classroom management, and most importantly have fun and relax a little bit!
Long story short, life is good! I can't help but sit here and think as I am typing this how incredibly blessed I am! There is just nothing better than knowing I am doing what I am supposed to be doing and I'm happy with my life! I get to go to my parents home whenever I want, I have a little more financial freedom, I belong to an amazing ward and have made some awesome friends, I have an amazing principal and work with great people and I get to live with Erica! Sure there were hard days and difficult things that happened in this past year, but as I am typing out and remembering my past year I am finding that the good days are sticking out in my mind more than the bad!
This was my SSC (advisory) class.
