Tomorrow marks the first day of my second year of teaching. After a reflective, adventurous and grounding four weeks escape from the real world of work to my idealistic world where my social life reigns supreme, my summer has come to an end. I feel torn between two emotions right now. The first being unease. An uneasiness stems in the pit of stomach as a cross between nerves for another first day and guilt for not taking more advantage of my time this summer. So many days this summer I chose to go out with friends or lay in bed an extra hour (or four) instead of start meticulously planning for the year. More than once I wrote things on a to-do list that never got done and spent too much money on a Wednesday night going out with friends. While I did work this summer (more than most would even), despite my best efforts to repress that little voice in my head, it keeps reminding me I could have done more. And with that voice, comes the realization that my students may on some level, pay for my self-indulgence. Now you can point out that I deserve a break and that to stay sane, I must take time for myself and I will not argue you on that fact. However, in the end, the truth remains that my work ethic to some extent, is proportional to my student's success and therefore, should not be too neglected. The second emotion I feel right now is excitement. Pure joy at the prospect of meeting my new students, seeing my old students and honestly, just going back into the old routine. I am going into withdrawals of 4-year-old hugs and 4-year-old smiles as all summer long I have had to go without the unwavering love and devotion of my students. Not to mention, my friends are finding my stories increasingly less hilarious as they begin to revolve more around my life and less around the anecdotal stories of my little comedians. Try as I might, I will never be as funny as my students. I do not miss the hours, I do not miss the early mornings and I definitely do not miss the tantrums, but I REALLY miss my kids. More than once this summer, I have been talking to someone about my kids with such excitement and pride that a perplexed listener has misunderstood, thinking me a mother, not a teacher. I think that is a sign, I desperately need to get back into the classroom.
I have always found it funny that we make New Year's Resolutions in January, as if people actually consider January to be the start of a new year. As children, it is ingrained in us that the year begins in August (or in my case July) with the start of school and even into adulthood, I think people from all professions would agree that the end of summer marks a new year much more than the passage of Christmas. Therefore, with the beginning of a new year starting tomorrow, I figure it may be a good time for me to make some.
1. I will be more patient. People who do not know me very well often consider me a very patient person. People meet me and think me quiet and understanding, traits that often go hand and hand with patience. However, people who actually know me will be the first to tell you tales of how incredibly impatient I am. I hold myself and other people to extremely high expectations and become increasingly frustrated when people fail to meet those expectations. On top of that I am timely, move quickly and action-oriented. This combination keeps me far from possessing any sort of patience. However, I teach children. Despite their grown-up polo uniforms, their oftentimes inappropriate grown-up language and confidence beyond their age, they are only four years old. In fact, at the beginning of the year, there is usually a handful of kids who are only three. Kids need patience. Kids need a teacher who will explain the rules once and one hundred times with consistent tone. Kids need a teacher who will give them time to discover the answers at their own pace. I have BIG dreams for my kids, I think anyone can tell you that. However, I need to remind myself not just daily, but hourly, that big dreams take big chunks of time and it does not happen overnight. I will be patient.
2. I will be more positive. I hate to admit this is one of my resolutions because I have always considered myself extremely positive. I am energetic and optimistic and generally excited for most situations. I like to think both people who know me well and those how barely know me would say that I am generally positive. But I have come to discover in the past year that it takes more than a generally positive outlook to be successful. It takes staying positive even when I want to punch a wall to really help my students accomplish their goals. Firstly, I need to be more positive in my system of rewards and consequences. This year I have really grown in my behavior management and my ability to keep my students "in line" so to speak. However, my system centers around consequences instead of rewards and incidentally, takes some of the positivity out of the room. Obviously, I dote on my children constantly, giving verbal rewards and physical rewards daily and even hourly, but in reality, my students need more opportunities for yes's and less opportunities for no's. I do not want my kids to look back on my year and talk about time out or missing recess, I want them to look back and talk about being the superstar of the day or getting a sticker. I want them to remember me for how happy I made them while still preserving structure, not for how strict I was. Again, they are only four. Secondly, I need to be more positive with people I work with, even when it does not come easy. I have always been an authentic and genuine person, resulting in it being nearly impossible for me to hide my true feelings about anyone---ever. I wear my emotions on my sleeve and always have and as much as I may hate it, I need to learn how to grit a smile through my grimace and put on the happy face for the sake of my own sanity. I need to understand that it is not so much about who is right and who is wrong, but who has the power and how to influence them to use their power in a way that helps instead of harms, my students. I hate this truth, but it is a truth, so I am practicing my smile. This may be my most difficult resolution of all. I will be positive.
3. I will be exceptional. Last year, I was an okay teacher. More generous observers may have even ventured to call me good. Considering it was my first year in teaching ever, some may say for my experience level, I was above average. But this year, I will not allow that to be the case. I don't want to be great compared to other people of my experience level. I don't want to be pretty good. I want to be as exceptional of a teacher as my exceptional students deserve. I want my students this year to achieve twice that of what my students last year did. I want them to show more advanced social skills, more advanced discipline and more passion for learning than my students did last year. I want people to meet my students at the end of the year and be floored to learn they are only in Pre-K. I want my students to not just enjoy school, but to fall in LOVE with it. I want them sleeping dreaming about what they will learn the next day and I want their parents flabbergasted by how much their students prove to be capable of. My students last year proved that they deserve not a good teacher, but an extraordinary teacher. So this year, I will be exceptional.
So those are my goals. Fall short I may, but give it my all I must. My students deserve the best and I must do everything in my power to give them my best self.
"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other" -Abraham Lincoln
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