- You may have to take three whole days of school, or longer, to set expectations and rules for 7 year olds. Especially 34 of them.
- Learn to tell the difference between the sound of a fire drill and a tornado drill. It's kind of important.
- In Catholic school, you might devote your prayers to a guinea pig and a dead dog.
- The Common Core math curriculum seems very frivolous. Learn to get over it.
- It is DARN HOT during the first few weeks of school. Invest in many dresses, skirts, and sleeveless blouses.
- Students may be absolutely horrified that you don't have any children, and are nonetheless unmarried, you old spinster, you.
- Giving reading assessments is fun. Some students might think the word "foreign" is read as "Virginia."
- You might have to try to explain what a hashtag is to students who have no idea what Twitter is.
- You can't buy school lunch in the cafeteria, even when they're serving your favorite meal from your own school days (fiestadas!!).
- Reward based behavior is the way to go. Kids will do anything to get marbles in the marble jar.
- When one kid has to go to the bathroom, five others have to. This goes for all things, like asking questions, needing bandaids, and telling you random information. Cut if off at the source!
I thought that I had more to write about, but I guess for now, it's just this short list. I feel like I'm lucky with my placement because I have such a large spread of abilities with these children. Some students are way behind, some are way ahead, and the rest are right in the middle. I've got a student who is fluent in French and doing times tables, and I've got another who seems like she's floating in space, unable to understand directions. It's so hard to plan around all of them, and I can already tell that some are bored because they grasp it so quickly, while others are frustrated and just don't get it. This will definitely be a challenging year full of learning how to reach all students at once, that's for sure.
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| Our reality on 85 degree days. |
I've had a hard time making myself go to the gym. I end up coming home, eating a snack, watching Mad Men, then napping. Hopefully once it's cooler out I'll have the motivation. Let me know if you have any questions about my school year! I start my own classes at Ursuline tomorrow afternoon, so I'm going to have a very full day. Soon, I'll write some student teacher style posts! Until next time!
