AuburnChick's Adventures

Today I began a new phase of my life.

My career as a teacher.

Oh sure, I know I’ve been working in my classroom for a little over a week now, but today was the first day I began earning money in my long-dreamed-about profession.

My only complaint, thus far, is the early hour in which I must now drag myself out of bed.

Ok…so being a mom should mean I am on autopilot at a moment’s notice, but when my children are in their teens now, so they do not wake up at o’Dark Thirty, allowing me to get in a few extra winks.

Not working during the summer and having children who either sleep in or get themselves off to work on their own also spoiled me.

Regardless, I got out of bed, showered and was ready by the time Rooster got up.

This is his second week of band camp…percussion camp to be more precise.  He has to be at school by 8am, the the timing is perfect.

I dropped him off and went to my school.

Normal hours for teachers are 7-3; however, we are allowed to slide in at 8:00 during this first week of planning.

I am so glad that I worked hard in my room last week, because I felt like I had a “home” when I walked in this morning.

Plus, I already had a place to carry this…a gift from a friend…

This is the friend who put me in touch with my dentist’s wife who, in turn, interviewed me for the job I now have.

This is also the friend whose husband is fighting cancer.

So she, in her thoughtfulness and despite her husband’s intense cravings for Chinese food (he was off of the chemo last week and was finally hungry), got this chair for me, along with a bag of gifts…

What was inside the bag?  Lots of goodies!!!

Computer “teacher” paper, a journal, a notepad, and a couple of sticky pads…essentials for any teacher!!

The day’s work started off with a two and a half hour faculty meeting.  It was a good chance to meet almost all of the teachers.  There are four of us who are new this year, so at least I feel more comfortable asking the “dumb” questions.

One good thing about the meeting?

Krispy Kreme Donuts!!

Oops…no picture.  I kind of ate mine too fast to snap a photo.

After the meeting, I was free to do my thing, which meant packing up the rest of the books in the hallway outside of my room.

Thank goodness one of the teachers had taken his 15 year old nephew to school.  I put him to work lugging the heavy boxes to the school’s attic.  He looked exhausted when he finished.

Meanwhile, I got down to work.

I was interrupted a few times as other teachers stopped and admired my room.  One teacher brought her son by.  He will be a senior and, thus, one of my students.  She explained that he likes to talk.  A lot.

Uh huh.

I can already tell that he has a great personality.

He told me he has taken English 1101 and 1102 at the college, so when I asked what he did in those classes, he said, “A lot of writing.  I hate writing.”

I told him he better get used to it, because that is what we are going to be doing a lot of.

He sighed and asked why.

My opinion?  If you can write a good paper, you can get through almost any class.

So then he asked if we would also be reading.

Um, yeah.  This class is sort-of called “English.”  Of course, I did not actually say this out loud, and honestly, I did not think it, but it sounds good on the blog, you know.

What I did explain was that we will be reading and writing about what we read.

He sighed.

I chuckled.

Then I asked him what he wanted to do after high school.

He is planning on attending medical school.

Um, hello?  That’s all you are going to be doing…reading and writing.

He told me we would talk about it next week.

I responded with, “I’ll talk, you’ll write.”

I have a feeling that I am going to enjoy being the teacher.

heehee

After they left, I got back to work…

Reading my new teacher resource books (thanks, Barb)…

Per Barb’s instructions (she was Teacher of the Year a few years ago), I started with Harry Wong’s book.

Oh my gosh!  This is a FABULOUS book!!!  It is so practical and a MUST read if you are in the education field.

I spent the rest of the day thinking…

Taking notes…

And thinking some more.

I told the principal not to worry if he saw smoke coming from my room.  It would only be my brain cells in overdrive.

Filed under: Teaching | Tagged: teaching | 4 Comments »

Today, I spent seven hours at the school.  As you saw from the pictures I posted a couple of days ago, I had my work cut out for me.

At first, the task seemed insurmountable.

I don’t know what you do in situations like this, but I like to put on some music and get my groove on.

Last night, I installed the free Pandora application on my fancy-schmancy new phone.

I was ready to boogie my way through those books, bookcases, and desks.

And that is what I did.

The Mr. was kind enough to buy me a couple of packages of finishing nails so I could nail the back pieces of my bookcases back together.

See, when I was transferring them from the building that houses the primary grades to my room, I managed to drop both of them, making them a little worse for wear.

Apparently I cannot be trusted with a dolly.

Getting my room organized has been my number one priority because I cannot function in a mess.

Oh, I know my house isn’t the cleanest, but it is kind-of-sort-of picked up (notice I did not say kind-of-sort-of clean as in eat-off-the-floor-clean), but I keep it fairly straightened up.

My work environment HAS to be neat.

I have always been like this.

And that is what led to a major oops.

You know how you’ll be cleaning the house, and you take something to one room and find something that needs to be done there, so you start cleaning it, completely forgetting about what you were originally doing?

Well, that happened to me.

I have two desks in the room, and I went to the one with the drawers on a mission to find something…maybe a pair of scissors.

Oh my.  The drawers were in need of purging.

Once I got started, I could not stop.

I cleaned the heck out of all nine of them.

I organized the push pins, rubber bands, and post-it notes.  I even separated the large paper clips from the small ones.

Yeah.

I’m anal like that.

My trash bag got more and more full.

Finally, I was done, and I dragged the bag outside to the dumpster, where it broke before I could lift it.

Ugh.

90+ degree heat, and there I was squatting down trying to scoop up pens and other stuff from the dirt on the curb.

Nasty, but I got the job done.

I happily went back inside.

A couple of hours later, I saw the teacher who had used the classroom last year.

I happily waved to her.

She asked if that was her stuff in the dumpster.

Uh oh.

My heart fell.

You see, I thought she had taken all of her stuff out of the room last week.

Apparently, she had not gotten to her desk.

Oh, you guys…I cannot tell you how horrible I felt as she walked back outside to go dumpster diving to see what could be salvaged.

I fear that she did not find much.

Sigh.

I could not believe that this would be one of her first impressions of me.

I apologized profusely and offered to replace any supplies I’d gotten rid of.

To her credit, she was very gracious, even while I admitted that I should not have assumed that I had the green light to clear things out.

I have much to learn.

All-in-all, it was a very productive day.

Although the room is not quite where I want it to be, I see light at the end of the tunnel.

Here are the before and after photos…

The desk that the computer is sitting on in the top right photo will be going bye-bye tomorrow…following its owner, so the Mr. bought me another desk to replace it.

That means I get to strap on my carpenter’s belt and  do some construction!  Woo Hoo!!

I am also planning on hanging another dry erase board on the long wall opposite the one that is home to the small desk.  I hope to do this next week during my first official (meaning I get paid) week on the job.

Meanwhile, the hallway is looking much more manageable…

So, I still have a lot to do, but it’s fun to celebrate each day’s progress.

Filed under: Teaching | Tagged: teaching | 4 Comments »