The decision to teach...

I started college in 2003, and wanted more than anything to be a psychologist.  Now, I had only one psychology class ever in high school and because the teacher was badass and super excited and all that stuff, I thought that I wanted to be like her and do psychology.  It was definitely interesting... I loved the classes I took, ended up taking a whole year and a half of psychology classes - intro to psych, child psych, abnormal psych, and educational psych.  Well I decided after taking child psychology that maybe I wanted to teach.  Thought about it for about a month - looking online, researching disabilities, asking other kids on my floor...and met with the director of special education, and changed my major.

I had some awesome professors at UMD.  They were totally into teaching and knew the answer to any question you had, were excited about more teachers wanting to do special ed, etc.  I remember one professor told us "This will be hard. It will be alot of work. But i know that you will all do it.  You want to teach special education.  Nobody who isn't willing to work hard would chose this job."  She was right - it was so much work. 

You started student teaching your junior year - 2-3 days a week, working up to your last grad school year teaching full-time.  You had to have experience in every setting.  We went to a specialized school and did feedings of children in wheelchairs, did a semester at an elementary regular ed setting.  I then chose one semester at a middle school self-contained class, a semester at a high school TAM setting, and a whole year at a high school self-contained class (2 different schools).

So after getting out of school (finally), I moved to Delaware and my teaching experience has been similar to my student-teaching.  My first year was awesome.  I got exactly the type of job I wanted.  I taught a middle school self-contained class.  It was a satellite program of the specialized school in the district.  The kids were amazing and I loved it.

Because I wasn't yet tenured, I wasn't rehired and had to wait until a job opened up for the following school year.  My principal found a job for me at the alternative school - and because there was little choice in the matter, I said yes.  It was the most challenging experience of my life.  I went to school for five years to teach, I knew all the latest practices, and my first year went great... but nothing could prepare me for the battle of teaching elementary emotionally disturbed kids.  From the beginning, it challenged my patience and character.  I'm the type of person that's calm, go-with-the-flow, nothing can go too wrong... But I couldn't be like that in this setting.  I'd go next door and complain to a co-worker that I sucked at my job, I can't do this, I don't know what to do, etc.  Of course I did it, and I felt successful around May and it was a good experience.  I have a whole new appreciation and think that if it weren't for certain circumstances, I could do it again.

Now, in my third year I am teaching at a high school, co-teaching with the regular ed. teachers.  It's really a great job and I am having a great time.  I'll be writing about my struggles and successes, so stay tuned.

I have my Masters now, and I plan to get my Doctorate in the future.  I really want to teach college classes, because if it weren't for the enthusiasm and knowledge that my professors gave to me, I wouldn't be so passionate about my job.  I want to do the same for other teachers-to-be.  It will happen sometime, after I have kids and they are in school... but it's a big goal of mine and it will get done no matter what it takes.

I'm a teacher.  The differences I make, no matter how few, are the reason that I can walk into work everyday with a smile on my face.  I love my job.  My dad is a retired teacher (taught middle school and college classes for 30+ years) and I think he lives by the quote "once a teacher, always a teacher."

Being the mean one...

So this week, with it's crazy schedule (school only M, W, F), has caused my kids to act like they have never had to sit in a chair before.  They are out of control.  And I finally used what I learned last year with my alternative school kids and got MEAN.

I seem to be put with the most neediest, behavior issue, nerve-racking kids.  Don't get me wrong, I love my job and the kids are really awesome... but the past week has really tested my patience.  I have a total of twelve kids on my caseload.  Of those twelve, maybe.. maybe 5 or 6 I can depend on to do their work, listen, pay attention, etc.  The rest of them are day-to-day wonders.  One day I'll go home feeling like a superstar cause my one lesson I get to teach all day goes extremely well, and then the next I have kids in the corner screaming and climbing the walls.  It's part of the job.

Back to me being mean, I finally broke down and sent two of my kids to ISS (in school suspension).  Now understand, I follow my special kids around to their four core classes and try with all my might to be patient...and then I get them for a period of tutorial (playing catch up, reteaching, previewing..) so when they get to me and act like they don't know how to behave, it's time to man up.

One kid, as I mentioned earlier, was in the corner screaming and making noises and literally climbing the walls.  He was definitely on my last nerve.  If he would have taken his medicine, maybe came in to school with more than just the clothes on his body, and was listening at all to what people said to him he might have been given a second chance... He begged me to not send him to ISS, as his "life would be over", but I stood my ground.  Felt very proud of myself then. 

My second darling decided he didn't want to do anything.  Absolutely nothing.  This one, let me tell ya.  I met with his parent and had to discuss his behavior (about 5 referrals thus far).  He's a very special, unique kid that is so hard to understand, but enough is enough.  Anyway, he refused to walk to ISS (though he chose to go there of his free will today instead of going outside to a PEP RALLY?!) so he had to be escorted.  Oh the joy of life.

My kids are needy.  I understand this, and I really love to help them... but they often refuse, end up failing, and the other teachers look at me with the look of "they're yours, make them pass..." as if anything I say or do with them will change their attitude.

So today is another Friday this week (off tomorrow for Return Day - a huge thing in lower slower Sussex County, DE) and I am taking my wonderful, sexy fiance to dinner for his birthday.  He's such a lucky man...

<3

The beginning...

I'm starting a blog because I saw Julie and Julia, turned to my fiance, and said "I could start a blog, write about teaching and wedding planning and share things with people."  And of course his response (because he's such a good fiance) was "Yea, you should..."

I'm on the right track.  Life is finally the way it should be...  I have an awesome fiance that makes me feel like the most important thing on earth.  He is the greatest man I know and is my other half.  We are getting married next October, have our own place, and look forward to the future.  I have a great job teaching high school special education.  It's my third unique teaching experience in the three years I've been out of school and it's really awesome.  I love the challenge, the crazy kids I work with, and feeling like I'm doing some good out there. 

So this is the beginning... I've started a blog.  The stories I share about work and wedding planning will be dramatic, for sure, but let's hope I can get some advice and share some helpful things with other teachers and brides to be...  Let's get rollin'.