The first week. We’ve almost made it. Only one more day.
By now, I am completely relaxed in the morning, but I was quite anxious the night before the first day of school - despite the fact that this is my 7th year as a classroom teacher. The week leading up to my very first day as a classroom teacher, I was ready to call my school and quit before even starting because I was so nervous! When I hear that one of my kiddos is nervous, I always tell them about my own nervousness, and they give me that funny look, unable to believe that their teacher might feel the same way.
Working at my current school has a humongous perk: Class sizes are tiny. I only have 12 kids in my class this year. Having worked with classes of 25+ I know what a great luxury this is! The night before my first day, however, I dreamt that I had about 30 kids squished around my alphabet rug, and one was more terrible than the next. How happy was I when I woke up and remembered that I only had 12 kiddos coming to school that morning. And as it turns out, so far they have all been pretty harmless. One of them is a major pain in the butt, aka a huge smart-aleck, but if that’s the worst I’m gonna have to deal with I’ll call myself lucky.
We’ve already had some good chuckles together. Plus I have had my share of teacher chuckles. Those ones you should keep track of and use later on when you retire to write a book. Here’s one: Two kiddos were playing a game during playtime. One of them yelled at the other: “You’re cheating!” In fact, as we are learning to speak German, he yelled it in German, “Du schummelst!” His friend yelled back: “No, I’m not schummeling!” mixing English and German. It might have been one of those scenarios that only crack up the person that was actually present but I’m sure at least all of you language teachers can appreciate this!
Not to sound tacky, but it’s situations like that that remind me why I’m doing this job. Why I go through the nervousness in the beginning and deal with the smart-alecks. Those situations make it all worth it.
PS: Wanna know which game the kiddo "schummeled" at? Have a look right here.
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