Colleagues
- Trial: Besides unintentionally violating the dress code (embarrassingly, I had 3 different colleagues talk to me very kindly about my inappropriate attire on 3 different occasions; I am almost 30 and still can't dress myself), a challenge for me was having lots of unexpected events (planned by others) pop up in May and June that took away my already limited instructional time. This was frustrating, but I had to tell myself that there's no point in getting upset with things that are out of my control and that I just needed to do the best I could with the time and resources I had and to be content with that.
- Smile: The people I work with are so kind, patient, and understanding with me as I mess up and learn, especially when it comes to classroom management and discipline. Many of them also have a wicked sense of humour. But above all, I'm so grateful to be able to pray with them and worship with them, knowing we have a bond that surpasses our commonality as educators.
- Trial: Teaching in a science lab with chatty boys who would much rather bug the snake and fish at the back of the room, play with the faucets or drain stoppers, or mess around with whatever they've sneaked into their pockets, from bouncy balls to cards to phones to bits of paper to anything that makes horribly distracting noises on their desks, much to their delight.
- Smile: The boys coming up with crazily creative skits, desiring to know how to say all sorts of new and fun words and phrases in Spanish, and improving their pronunciation.
- Trial: Preparing a fantastic lesson only to find out that they need the class time to catch up on work for other subjects OR that they already covered the material with my predecessor (great minds think alike?) and then having to quickly come up with something valuable.
- Smile: The day we practiced 'active listening' by engaging in heated discussions about things they disagreed on, or hearing a student's fantastic poem about hating poetry.
- Trial: Besides the nightmare of teaching a highly social and distracted group of 13-year-olds in the second last period of the day a subject that is mandatory but that they treat as an option and an easier alternative to French, AND realizing that their retention rate is minimal, AND discovering that the material my predecessor and I planned to cover with them was not only way too difficult but also out of sync with the curriculum ... finding out from the principal that the kids ALSO considered the class boring.
- Smile: Having a lot of success with understanding and classroom management by - crazily enough - using direct instruction and worksheets. Also, somewhat randomly gaining the reputation of 'coolest teacher' after one student recorded another student and I doing 'the whip' in my Bodies in Creation class, which made its way around to most of the junior highs via SnapChat. One student was quick to clarify, however, that I'm still just 'mom cool.'