A New Era

I say this is a new era because....(drumroll please) I am finally a working stiff like the rest of us! Haha, I don't mean that in a bad way, but it is VERY interesting to not be able to claim the "college student" title any more. To catch you up from the last blog post, I successfully completed my student teaching at an amazing elementary school! I moved to the 4th and 5th grades after my time in kindergarten was over. I was sad to leave the kindergarteners mainly because I'd miss them, but also because my mentor teacher fell and broke her arm in several places, leaving her in recovery and the kids with a substitute teacher! They lost Mrs. E, then me the following week, and then had a substitute Mrs. B for about two weeks, but the school board doesn't allow substitutes with no college degree to continue being a substitute if it looks like the position will be long-term instead. So Mrs. B. was replaced with Ms. S., giving the kids FOUR new teachers in a matter of a month. I moved on to 4th and 5th grade and tried to check up on them as often as I could, but I was busy with my new students too! It's amazing how many lesson plans one can produce when the need arises.

Anyway, I finished up with student teaching in the beginning of December and graduated on December 13th magna cum laude (also "thank tha Lawd!) with a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies, a minor in history, a minor in Christian studies, teacher licensure for the state of Virginia, and a pending award called the Meritorious New Teacher Award which will allow me to teach in 6 different states without having to meet their licensure requirements! I'm still waiting to find out about that one. I also passed the Praxis II for middle school math, meeting requirements for both Virginia and West Virginia. I also took middle school science and passed the West Virginia requirements. I am excited to finally see this teaching license that has taken such a long hard time to get! Here's all the student teachers from this fall semester.

The week after graduation I moved into a new apartment in WV, cleaned it, painted, moved all my junk from my old place to this new one, got the carpet cleaned, learned more about leases, fixed several things on my own, complained about the bathroom and water pressure, switched the electric bill to my name, and many more things I cannot remember!

Also during this week I searched for job options, including a middle school math position in 6th grade at a very close-by middle school. I applied and got all my information to the school board, and waited to hear. I went home to northern VA for some family Christmas time!

Christmas was a BLAST! I got to see all the family - parents, two sisters, one brother, one brother-in-law, and three adorable little nephews! Christmas is always more fun with kids around. They wrote Santa a letter and left him cookies and milk, and were amazed to find a letter back from him in the morning! We all opened presents together with Karen's family, then they left for Bryan's family's Christmas. The rest of us were lazying around, I got a visit from Greg who was on his way to Martinsburg, then the five of us all opened our presents from each other! God is good to allow us the means to give each other gifts from the heart. I enjoy watching everyone open the gifts I got for them, knowing that God's the one who allowed me to give those! I forget what we did the rest of the day, but overall it was a good Christmas.

The day after was shopping, of course, then I spent a few days in Delaware with Greg and his family. We went to the beach one day and enjoyed semi-warm weather for that. We also visited his sister in northern DE, hosted a party for church family at his house, and visited his 90 year old Grandpop!

After going back to Mom and Dad's for a few more days, I got a call from the principal at the middle school saying he wanted to interview me on Mom's birthday. I went back to do the interview, which went very well, but on the trip home received a call from the principal, Mr. G, at the school where I student taught! He said the teacher that fell and broke her arm was still not better and that the long-term substitute they had, Ms. S, did not want to come back after the new year. So the position was available, and I was Plan A! I told him about the interview and assured him I'd call back after the interview and think about what God would have me do. the interview went well but there were two other teachers ahead of me, current employees of that school system, meaning they had priority. So after some prayer and advice from people close to me, I decided that I would rather take the kindergarten position and be back with the kids I started out with! I called Mr. G and he was able to work out a deal with the school board Human Resource ladies that would allow me to start immediately! I had three short days to get my apartment in order before beginning teaching. I painted my bathroom, all by hand because I couldn't afford to buy a paint roller, re-organized my stuff, cleaned some more, did laundry, and started to get excited! Oh, and I also had to plan my finishing of paperwork for this job. That resulted in a "run-around" Tuesday. I had to get a TB skin test, get fingerprinted at the jail while listening to a distressed inmate in the background begging for someone to take care of her daughter, get a drug test at a clinic an hour away, (yes, the old "pee in a cup" trick....fun), fill out about ten pages of paperwork, all after teaching all day!

Today is now Friday, a SNOW DAY! The first four days of the week were....interesting. I had two hour delays on two of those days, and have spent most of the time yelling at the kids! It's amazing how fast kids will take advantage of the teachers they have to be allowed to do whatever they want. I am constantly fighting the "me me" battle with these kids who are definitely not as well-behaved as they were when I was there last! I know it has to do with all the changes they've been through, so all I can do now is pick up the pieces. I have been a mean teacher all week, putting names on the board, taking away gym and guidance, making them sit with their heads down, not allowing nearly as much talking as they were used to, giving some a prize but not others, and anything else I can think of! It has all resulted in only one crying screamer, my most challenging student at this point. She wants her way, or else! But I can see improvement, even if only over four short days. I am excited for what the future holds. They've said and done so many cute things already. I think this is exactly where God wants me right now and I am so excited that He's helped me to get here!

One cute story before I go...with many more to come. I allowed the students to work on a puzzle together at their table before gym one day this week. Three kids, who I'll call Evan, Lilly, and Stephanie, were all working on a puzzle at their table when Lilly and Stephanie got into a tugging war over one piece. Lilly ended up pulling it hard out of Stephanie's hand right before I got to the table and took it away completely with a sharp word about not fighting. Next thing I know, Evan is holding Stephanie's little hand in his, inspecting it for all he's worth. Joey, another student at the next table says, "Evan, you're just trying to 'tend your a doctor." Evan responds, "Well my mommy used to be a doctor and she told me how to be one cuz I can be one too. I learned how."

I was silently laughing at this point and nearly died when Evan looks at Stephanie with the most serious expression and says, "This red mark well it's in the skin, and your blood pressure's not real good."