aaaannnnd....i still don't know!
life is so crazy right now! i am having to learn to depend on God for every little thing! i don't know what i will do after i graduate. i don't know where i will live. where i will work. if i will have insurance. how to get it. if jose (my car) will live much longer. i don't know a single thing. to me, that's a little scary. it didn't get to me before, but now it's stressing me a bit. this constantly forces me to re-evaluate myself, my attitudes, my motivations, my actions. it makes me pray and i just have to trust that God will come through, because He always does! while it is hard to wait and see what is up and coming, it is also exciting just knowing that SOMETHING is coming! God is going to bless me somehow! and that makes the waiting more endurable.
money is so tight that i am just barely going to make it through student teaching! obviously when i live at home and have virtually no friends in the city, there is not a whole lot i want to be spending my money on. i mean, there are the obvious things (for me, music and plane tickets)...but they are not necessary. for example, i would love to fly to colorado next month for a friend's wedding, but can't afford to, unless some incredible last-minute-bargain-ultra-discount-uber-cheap-how-did-this-happen deal comes along. however, God has been so good to me in the financial realm! even though i don't have much, right now i don't need much. and He provided what i need! i have been tutoring one girl on thursday afternoons, making $30 for the hour i tutor her. i learned this morning that i now have another tutoring job lined up for another student, and will be making $30 for that hour of tutoring! so i am going to be making $60 a week now - that is double what i have made these past 2 weeks! :) as i said, God is good. He knows what i need and He provides!
i have had to sit back and evaluate myself a lot, especially today! i am beginning to wonder if i have somehow ruined my attitude on teaching - if it was a subconscious choice that soured the prospect. i don't remember what changed my mind, and i don't remember when it happened. i think a big thing for me was, when i started student teaching, i just didn't realize how much work went into teaching! sure, our profs told us all about it, but it wasn't a reality until it started CONSUMING MY LIFE. as education majors, i am sure we just sat in our seats and said "yes, i am sure it is time consuming and hard", but i don't think we got the message that "yes, it consumes most of your time and is the hardest job EVER." oh how we misunderstood! i think i was completely overwhelmed, and let myself panic. i didn't ask for help right away (read: i asked for help today...with 3.5 weeks to go...). i also need everything to be COMPLETELY ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUSLY ORGANIZED AND STRUCTURED. although jean's classroom and her management techniques are indeed organized and structured, i still don't think it is enough for me to function at full capacity. BUT, she has to run her classroom the way it works for her, NOT the way it will work for me! after all, i will not be in her classroom much longer! if i do teach, i will need to buy 2394898 of everything the container store has. i will need to label everything, make 973876 lists, and color code everything. i know, it sounds ridiculous, but i promise you i can't function otherwise.
on this note, if you have any strategies for how you keep your classroom organized, stay on task, not get behind, and not overwhelmed...PLEASE LET ME KNOW!
maybe, if i can figure out what happened, i can get back to where i was. i think i would enjoy teaching. i really think i could. ESPECIALLY if it was science! maybe i just freaked out. maybe i panicked. maybe i had a melt down. maybe i lost it. maybe i started doubting myself. i don't know. please pray as i prayerfully seek God's will in my life and what my future holds!
money is so tight that i am just barely going to make it through student teaching! obviously when i live at home and have virtually no friends in the city, there is not a whole lot i want to be spending my money on. i mean, there are the obvious things (for me, music and plane tickets)...but they are not necessary. for example, i would love to fly to colorado next month for a friend's wedding, but can't afford to, unless some incredible last-minute-bargain-ultra-discount-uber-cheap-how-did-this-happen deal comes along. however, God has been so good to me in the financial realm! even though i don't have much, right now i don't need much. and He provided what i need! i have been tutoring one girl on thursday afternoons, making $30 for the hour i tutor her. i learned this morning that i now have another tutoring job lined up for another student, and will be making $30 for that hour of tutoring! so i am going to be making $60 a week now - that is double what i have made these past 2 weeks! :) as i said, God is good. He knows what i need and He provides!
i have had to sit back and evaluate myself a lot, especially today! i am beginning to wonder if i have somehow ruined my attitude on teaching - if it was a subconscious choice that soured the prospect. i don't remember what changed my mind, and i don't remember when it happened. i think a big thing for me was, when i started student teaching, i just didn't realize how much work went into teaching! sure, our profs told us all about it, but it wasn't a reality until it started CONSUMING MY LIFE. as education majors, i am sure we just sat in our seats and said "yes, i am sure it is time consuming and hard", but i don't think we got the message that "yes, it consumes most of your time and is the hardest job EVER." oh how we misunderstood! i think i was completely overwhelmed, and let myself panic. i didn't ask for help right away (read: i asked for help today...with 3.5 weeks to go...). i also need everything to be COMPLETELY ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUSLY ORGANIZED AND STRUCTURED. although jean's classroom and her management techniques are indeed organized and structured, i still don't think it is enough for me to function at full capacity. BUT, she has to run her classroom the way it works for her, NOT the way it will work for me! after all, i will not be in her classroom much longer! if i do teach, i will need to buy 2394898 of everything the container store has. i will need to label everything, make 973876 lists, and color code everything. i know, it sounds ridiculous, but i promise you i can't function otherwise.
on this note, if you have any strategies for how you keep your classroom organized, stay on task, not get behind, and not overwhelmed...PLEASE LET ME KNOW!
maybe, if i can figure out what happened, i can get back to where i was. i think i would enjoy teaching. i really think i could. ESPECIALLY if it was science! maybe i just freaked out. maybe i panicked. maybe i had a melt down. maybe i lost it. maybe i started doubting myself. i don't know. please pray as i prayerfully seek God's will in my life and what my future holds!
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But then, let me tell you this: You get to go through your 'first year' as a student teacher. You get to experience all that other stuff firsthand, before someone starts paying you to do it. You get practice.
I am currently in my second year. Second year has been overwhelmingly, surprisingly, shockingly SO much better. Everyone kept telling me it would be. I always heard- second year is so so much better, you just wait- and I thought to myself, "I don't see how it could be. I still have to deal with disrespectful children, I still have to figure out how I am going to manage all of this work all of the time, etc." But those other people were right. 2nd year is a world of difference. You have so much confidence in what you do after you have done it already.
I felt discouraged a lot last year because I wondered if I was really cut out to be a teacher, if it was really something I was called to do. I questioned my capability. This year I feel revitalized. Renewed. Confident that I am doing what I need to be doing. I LOVE teaching. I love it. You couldn't pay me to do anything else. But last year? There were times when I would've gladly done something else. Even now, I absolutely love teaching, but do I love it every minute of every day? No. Do I love my kids every day? No. But I know that I love teaching, and I know that I love the kids, and I know that for whatever bad day I am having there are numerous good days to follow.
SO. Do not fret. Do not be discouraged. Do not feel that you must not be cut out for teaching because you aren't loving it right now. Give it another year or two. You might just really love it after all (and if you loved being a camp counselor, you should enjoy teaching once you get past the hard part).
Oh, and two last things:
Teaching will always consume nearly all of your time. You just learn to accept it and balance your life. Not everything has to be done right this minute. When you die- your to-do list won't be empty.
And about the classroom organization: I can tell you most classrooms start out organized. But, as the 2nd law of thermodynamics tells us: all things are moving towards a state of chaos at all times. So it goes with your classroom mid-semester.
: ) Lauren
Teaching is a lot like flying by the seat of your pants sometimes.
I get my week planned, I execute. I do the best I can to keep on top of grading. Eventually it all comes down to one day every couple of weeks where I just spend lots of hours at school doing nothing but grading and recording. It happens like that sometimes and nothing can be done to stop it. You have to train yourself to be okay with it.