I love being a primary school teacher, especially now! I have a wonderful job teaching first grade as a job share with a sweet group of 17 kids. Thank goodness for this school, group of kids, and the amount of hours I am required to work.(which is far less than in the past)
Last year, I thought I would quit teaching because of the amount of daily stressors that were thrown at me.
Here is a little background on what my life was like on a daily basis. From the moment I woke up on a school day, I would rush around, already panicked about what the day would bring. I would get to work, get my Walky Talky (the most startling, annoying thing to carry around all day) and walk to my classroom. Upon entering my classroom I would have a moment of panic and contemplate running out of the school and never coming back. At that point I would grit my teeth and try to figure out what needed to be done in the 20 minutes before the students arrived….
The group of kids I had were a handful to say the least. I loved each and every one of these kids individually and still think about them often. As a class I couldn’t handle them and no matter what I did, I felt I had failed at the end of every day. I felt alone, saddened and lost.
As I teach a math lesson that is about 10 minutes long I slowly fall apart.
(for confidentiality, none of my students names will be used in any of my writing)
As the class comes in for recess they are asked to get water and then come sit in their carpet spots. I finally get the students quiet enough to come in and I open the door and let them come inside and…this is what happens…”Britney cut me” “Sammy kicked me” “No I didn’t” “Mary your hogging the water fountain” “christina took my spot on the carpet and won’t get out” “Logan cut my hair” Meanwhile, 3 boys are running around chasing each other, one kid is standing on a chair, 10 kids are sitting quietly on the carpet, 2 kids are hissing at each other, on kid is crying to themselves in the library; and there is ONE of me.
I put out 5 fires and finally after 10 minutes get the kids all on the carpet for one glorious minute! I attempt to regain my thoughts about what the heck I was going to teach and start my lesson. I open my mouth and my Principal/ Vice principal walks in, and makes herself comfortable in a tiny chair and starts typing away.
About what? I don’t know…The feeling of being watched, being judged, being measured brings my heart rate up, my blood begins to get hot and tears form in the back of my eyes. How in the world am I supposed to be a good teacher when I have 24 of the most needy 5 year olds for 7 hours a day and I am not supposed give them choice time and someone is ALWAYS watching me?
To be continued….
Chapter 2
I came to realize quickly that this school year was going to be incredibly difficult. What I didn’t realize is how much is was going to teach me about myself.
I got to my classroom the week before I had to be there and found out that it was bright orange and yellow on many of the walls, the shelves were over flowing and the blinds were florescent green and yellow. Sounds like a learning environment…right? lol
I was inspired at that point, ready to tackle it all! I went and found paint and paint brushes and went to work. I got through painting 2 of the walls, one wall with a calming yellow, and one with a light blue. I was running out of time and energy and there was still a bright yellow wall. I resorted to sponge painting it white to mute it and calm it down. It looked like crap! But, I was out of time and needed to focus on knowing what I was teaching. So, I started off the school year with randomly and poorly painted walls, cupboards/shelves that were overflowing and fluorescent green and yellow blinds.
At this point no one told me I could get rid of anything in the classroom, so I just dealt with there being way to much stuff and tables that didn’t fit the kids around them. I put on a happy face and spent a week learning about the 7 different curriculums that we were teaching to our kindergarteners. I started reading the curriculum and watching videos and got as prepared as I could before the first day of class.
A few weeks went by … I got to work at 7:30 and I left at 5:30/6, tried to do some exercise, got home and made dinner and went to bed. It was pretty obvious that this was not sustainable… but I knew that the beginning of the year is always a little crazy and stressful. Within these first few weeks, I figured out that one of my students was quite violent. They would go from being totally fine to very angry quickly and would 98% of the time hit/kick/bite/scratch whoever was in their line of fire or the person who made them upset. They would also run out of the classroom and not come back or hide. So, every time I thought I had it under control this student would do one of these things. As a teacher, your first job is to keep kids safe. Well, I couldn’t do that!
From across the room I would see the child lunge forward at another kid, claws out… or run out of the room while I was teaching alone. I would calmly panic. Calmly, because I am supposed to be the adult that these kids look up to, that keeps them safe… in my head I was panicking! That feeling is not easy to let go immediately and has since haunted me when situations come up that feel similarly. Over and over again, every day, I felt this feeling of panic… Sometimes, I couldn’t hold it in and I would just go in the bathroom and cry.
In my world, no one understood how I was feeling. I was at a loss but thought… It’s just the beginning of the year, it will get better, I will help the student learn to use their words and tools to calm down.
Well…you will have to keep reading my blog to figure out what happens 🙂
To be continued…
Chapter 3
My life with Anxiety 