Wow, that was quite an experience. I don’t have too much time to delve into things, but Murphy sure was busy today.
First off, about half the staff I know there were gone for the day at training and such.
Second, I realize with about 45 minutes before the first bell that I don’t have a key for one of my classrooms. Thankfully my wonderful mentor helped me out on that one.
Then, I need to run to the attendance office to get class rosters to check attendance, but it turns out the sheets that get printed aren’t correct. Again, my mentor comes to save the day.
Of course my wonderfully drawn out lesson plan takes half the time I expect it to take, so I end up with 45 minutes left in class and nothing else to do.
But I get past that and make it to my 3rd period class (2nd period is my conference). That’s when things turn ugly. I of course planned to have a projector for my introduction, but setting up a projector and a computer (don’t have a laptop yet) took about 30 minutes of class time. Oh, and I also run out of the surveys I wanted the students to complete during warm-ups because the rosters were wrong.
Alas, I have staff members who were wonderfully helpful throughout the day and saved me several times. It’s amazing how much of a difference having someone run one errand for you can save the day. I’ll have to remember that later when someone else needs help.
To sum it up, teaching takes a LOT of work and is a LOT of responsibility and you think about running away a LOT. But as long as you don’t and you give it your best, you’ll make it to the end of the day.
As my friend Kelly says, “Teaching takes guts.”