A job ain't nothing but work.

The difference between being a mom and a teacher is basically that I don’t have to feed my students dinner.  Yet. 

I am back to work and really enjoying my new school.   The staff and students are great and although we are still in the “honeymoon” phase, I am excited about the start of a new school year.  That being said, I have done pretty much nothing but eat, sleep, work, plan, cook[1], and clean.[2]  I am tired!

I have spent the last year at home with Ryann and so I am getting pretty used to understanding her moods, likes, and dislikes, and as a parent I am her first teacher-knowing all that stuff is important.  However, to be a successful classroom teacher, one must know their students the same way.  Trying getting to personally know the likes, dislikes, and moods of 150 different kids is a little bit more demanding.  I think this is the main reason why the beginning of the school year is so exhausting-sure, you have stuff you have done in class before, but just because it worked last year doesn’t mean it will work this year, and during this honeymoon phase a lot of the time is spent trying to figure out how to meet the needs of many different personalities.[3]

In the same way that I hope I am being a positive influence for my child, I hope that I can in some way impact the lives of the 150+ kids I see every day in class, and for that reason, even when I am not at work I am thinking about work-so while teachers aren’t in the classroom every day, the students of my classroom enter my mind daily.  I talk about them like they are my own.  I have gotten stopped mid-story before by someone who said “wait a minute-how many kids do you have?”  I realized that I was telling a funny story about a student of mine, and of course had started out the story with “one of my kids…”

So while today’s blog has nothing to do with my family, I am hoping those moms who follow and check out the Yahoo! calendar for things to do will be patient-I will be adding to it soon-lots of cool stuff for the fall is coming in-and if you find something cool let me know! 

---

[1] Or my version of cooking, which includes opening up different cans, mixing them,  and turning the stove on.

[2] The jury is still out on whether or not what I do can be considered “cleaning” but it sounds better than “hiding stuff”

[3] This is without the option of just having the grandparents take them for the day so you can recharge.  Also, a 2 minute time out for middle school children doesn’t really affect them the way it affects my daughter.