The life of a first year teacher...

Wow! I have been B-U-S-Y!!

Luckily I have (almost) survived my first (half) year as a (SPED) teacher!! I look forward to many more! I complain about different aspects of my job from time to time, but overall I have loved it and am learning a lot!

I am, however, looking forward to SUMMER!!

I just wanted to stop by and check in in case any of you thought I might have fallen off of a cliff or something. Sorry I have not been as helpful as I had intended to be, but if nothing else, this has be cathartic for me!

To quote Tigger..."Ta Ta For Now!"

Our first severe weather day

The weather has been horrible where I live recently. Today, we had to go on 'lockdown' and ultimately ended up closing the county schools down early so that the students wouldn't be on school buses when the next round of storms hits. It was so difficult to see these kids crying and scared all the while hoping that my own kids were ok and being unable to comfort them. Overall, everyone behaved well and did what they were supposed to do. We got everyone out of there quickly, so hopefully everyone has a safe place to go if we get what we're supposed to this afternoon/evening! Never a dull moment!

Another week...

Another week is almost finished. I talked to another teacher yesterday who graduated from college with me. Surprisingly, this really encouraged me. I hate to hear of others struggling, but in this case, I was happy to know that it's not just a SPED thing to be stressed out. Even though the struggles are different, she, too is having a difficult time adjusting to her first year of teaching. I don't know if I consciously thought that if I was a regular ed teacher that I wouldn't be so stressed out, but anyway, after talking to her, I realize teachers are pretty much stressed out across the board right now. I still think I would like to move to regular ed next year and plan on taking the pre-k licensure test next month to broaden my range of qualification. But I am getting better at my job and dealing better with the stresses that come with it. I love (most) of my students and wish SPED could be more about them than worrying about compliance and paperwork. So, I'm just going to keep on keeping on for now...Wish me luck!