I may have just survived one emotional roller coaster of a week.
This week I said goodbye to my old school and staff. Tears were prevalent and emotions high. People always say you don't realize how nice you have something until it is taken away and I believe now in the sincerity of that statement. In a staff of only 8 total, our building had the potential to either be a place of harmony or a place of secluded drama. We truly were harmonious one hundred percent of the time. We worked like a well oiled machine against the roughest of conditions with no resources and we made great gains as a team. The nursery housed in the same building could have either been a source of animosity or a mutual friendship. It was entirely a friendship. We changed for the better with their guidance and vice versa. Yes we all worked way too much, yes we were understaffed, undersupplied and exhausted, but we were going through it together. And none of us--NOT ONE-- of us wanted this change. But we are coping....
To counter all these emotions of sadness and loss, I have also been faced with the burden of feeling unwelcome. Very unwelcome. All week long my new principal emailed me menial tasks that took me 2-3 hours each despite knowing that I had report cards, closing holiday celebrations and oh yeah A MOVE going on. I worked night after night to pack up my class labeling every single box, bucket and piece of furniture with my name and school so that when the movers arrived Friday, I would be ready. Move out went smoothly. Move in did not. We rolled into our new schools with sad eyes and exhausted souls on a mid morning to find classrooms piled to the ceilings with junk, the evidence of a broken promise that it would be ready. I begged the administrators to move it out so that I could set up my room by Thursday when I left town and they said, "No need, we are teaching second grade in here all intercession, so you can just push your stuff against the wall and fix it in January before school starts."
So I took a card from my students and threw a temper tantrum. Immature? Undoubtedly. Successful? Absolutely. I burst into tears and started heaving just a bit (perhaps it was more of a panic attack) and started rambling about how I said over and over and over and over and over again that I HAD to have my room ready by Thursday as I was out of town until the day school started, since no one wanted to tell me my school was going to close until right before the end.
Luckily, my amazing para and ally in what now feels like a battle against a school district, grabbed my wrist and dragged me into the bathroom and talked me down. She just kept saying, Hannah, it is going to be okay. If we have to give the kids coloring books for the first day of school and stay until midnight the whole first week back, we will do it. You have to pull yourself together. So I did. I walked back into the room and apologized for my reaction only to find my new boss, two higher up administrators and about five teachers hauling things out of my room like they had just gotten caught sneaking out of the house and were trying to earn their way out of their punishment. While no one would ever have the dignity to apologize to me for essentially throwing me through the loop and lying to me time and time and time again, their decision to not have the second graders at intercession in my class and actually allow me to do my job was the apology I wanted. Wait--I still want a real apology too, but this will do.
Now let me flash back for a minute. In July when I started school, I was in a classroom with about 20 giant boxes, no Pre-K, teaching or much life experience and told to set up my room. All in less than 48 hours. I would have begged for someone to walk in and say, "Put this here, put that there, this is what you need to do." My room was painfully silent however.
Now back to the present. I might still be a first year teacher, but now I have six months under my belt which have been more or less a success. I know my materials, I know my classroom and I know my kids and so I walked into my class with a clear vision of what I wanted. After cooling off from my panic attack, temper tantrum, what have you, I then had my boss, a veteran Pre-K teacher and another administer start telling me what I needed to do. It was ironic, however, because all their advice seemed to involve me using the furniture left in the room that they had no space for. It was odd to me, that all three of them were adamant that I needed three teacher desks in my room when I actually only use my one teacher desk to pile things on and have literally, never sat at it once. Quite absurd, I thought, that I was downsizing my space in my room, but all the sudden, I needed five giant cabinets for storage, three teacher desks and twelve large tables. But, what do I know, I am a first year teacher. So coincidental however, that all the furniture they thought was essential to my students success--happened to have been sitting in an empty classroom untouched for the first six months of school.
So again, I had to make a bad impression and quite pointedly, ignore their advice. Had I even an inkling that their advice actually had to do with the well being of my students and not just avoidance of their bigger problem, not knowing what to do with their furniture, I would have listened. But while it may have made me look bad, I will not be bullied into wasting classroom space my students need out of incompetence from people higher up. Hopefully when I get back in January, they will be over it...
The Pre-K teacher then took the opportunity to show me what a "real blocks center looks like" and led me into her oh so perfect room. After about twenty minutes of being talked at, I said, I love some of the ideas you have and I am going to use them after my kids have been back for a couple weeks. First I am going to set my classroom up as close to has it was before so they can readjust. They are going through a big change right now and I want to keep things consistent before I start adding to my centers. She then grabbed my hand as if to comfort me (I did not ask for comfort I may add) and said, "You are going through a big change. You are transferring your emotions and discomfort with the move and displacing it on your kids. They do not care, they will adapt easily." I agreed that it was harder on me than them, but said I still wanted to be consistent for the first couple weeks. She then let go of my hand and said with a huff, "I'm sorry, I thought I was the one with the child development degree." I excused myself back to my room before steam started coming out of my ears.
Now from anecdotal notes of all the conversations I have ever had with a person in the workforce, horrible bosses, mean co-workers and incompetence are run of the mill in all jobs. But I did not use to have to deal with this. I had an amazing staff focused on learning, not on room decoration or placement and a boss who cared about my well being and professional development. We were a mission driven family working against the grind to make things happen. Now I have no idea what I am getting myself into.
In an effort to be less negative, as I am realizing my posts since the news of the move have increasingly become, two of the kinder teachers were exceptionally nice to me and offered to help in anyway they could and expressed their excitement for my arrival. The nurse is pumped to see my kiddos more often and my para and I worked our bottoms off and as of now, my room is all in order and organized, I simply need to finish decorating the walls and labeling my centers (which takes much longer than you would think). My new set up is really nice and I managed to get my hands on a lot of nice resources from claiming from the heaping piles of stuff left in my room (including probably one hundred dollars worth of paint!). My roommates and I threw a end of the year party in our apartment last night that was a success. Plus, my mom is coming to visit on Monday and help with the finishing touches and I am about to give myself two weeks of freedom from the stress once at home. So things are not all bad by any means.
But right now, I am being physically and emotionally drained from all angles. I am anxious and losing sleep and feeling like people are constantly trying to pull me down and ask me to prove myself. I said goodbye to T with the knowledge I will probably never see him again. J left without saying goodbye and I did not get back S. I am confident in my teaching abilities and I know I am strong, but I feel like the people at my new work are doubting my competence.
Regardless of the changes, it is time for positivity. I cannot live the rest of my year hating my new job, so I am going to start seeing things more glass half full. Usually I am an optimist and I still feel I am taking this better than a lot of people would, but now I am just going to have to squint a little harder to see the sunshine. I am going to use my break to refocus and recharge and in January, I am not going to let anyone take me off focus. I am doing this for my kids and for the new students I will gain in January, and no one can tear me down without my consent.
"We're taking it all to the end and planting our own garden." -Delta Spirit "Strange Vine"
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