Good Day

The days of a new teacher--whether new to the profession or new to the school--are a bit of a roller coaster as you work through trying to figure everything out.

Today was a bit of a zip up. My past two days have fared much better than the first week. I think it's a mix of getting into the material, setting clearer rules, and just trying to come at this from a new perspective a la If Bees Are Few.

I also found that my usual resistance to asking for help wasn't even present today. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that the English department at my school is really great as a whole, along with a majority of the faculty. There's only a small faction that seems to frown upon helping people. So, everyone is asking for help and ideas and sharing. It's very new to me, but I'm falling right into it and that collaboration brightens my mood.

Also, I had a class actually ASK QUESTIONS today. They wanted to know something! If that doesn't make for a teacher's high, I don't know what does.

I'm still struggling with a lot of things. One of the biggest things is building excitement over books and stories I just really don't care for. I thought I could do it, and I think I put up a good facade, but it's so much more fun and interesting when working with a piece of literature I feel good about. I think as I get through my first year I'll be able to weed out some of the less than stellar examples, but right now I'm still muddling and weeding through the literature and trying to work ways to make it accessible and important.