Confessions of a First Year Teacher

As I waste my summer away in the thick Minnesotan humidity at the Richfield pool, my mind has been focused on only one thing: a date.

No, not a date with some handsome young buck. A different kind of date.

September 7th.

My first day of school. The day that 90 7th graders and 90 8th graders are introduced to Ms. B, their new Language Arts teacher. It will be the first day I officially transfer from student to teacher, and one that I have been preparing for for the last 5 years of college...and possibly my entire life.

Okay, so maybe I am being a bit melodramatic, but this is a major turning point in life. I don't remember feeling this nervous/anxious/excited/scared-shitless since I left my comfy suburban life in Richfield for the rolling acres of River Falls University--a whole (gasp!) 40 minute drive away!

Now I am leaving the familiar college life of 11am classes, papers written the day before due, and 2 hour naps at noon for the world of real education. The world where I am at the front of the classroom. No longer am I the bored student in the second row, or the eagerly nervous student- teacher attempting to follow the footsteps of some pre-established teaching excellence. Now it is my turn to make a classroom my own.

This year has a lot in store for me. I am planning to cut the umbilical cord and make my first adult move into an apartment near my school (though my summer days with my "roommate"... ahem...mom, were nothing but mostly blissful). I will be taking over 2 grade levels of Language Arts in a fairly new, but fairly established Prep school, and filling the place of a teacher who did not quit, nor was fired, but was promoted to a higher position in the building (In other words, I have some intimidatingly large shoes to fill). I will, hopefully, be directing and choreographing a middle school musical. AND, I still plan on coaching the JV dance team in Hudson, Wisconsin.

I thought keeping a blog would help keep myself in check, and would also be a great opportunity for me to stay in touch with all the other budding teachers out there.

People say I'm crazy for going into education, especially middle school, and perhaps after reading this blog, then they can decide whether I truly am.