Thoughts on the First Week of Teaching

My first week of teaching 7th grade math was the start of a whirlwind that doesn't look to stop until Christmas - but I'm going to try to boil my first week observations down to a bulleted list so you can all know that I'm still alive and so that I can then finish grading last night's homework.

1. My feet hurt - the one thing that totally took me by surprise during the first week was the physical strain of pacing around a classroom for 6 straight hours, tense with the knowledge of constantly being seconds away from chaos. After the first day of school last Monday, I came home and took what I'm sure will go down as the single greatest nap in the history of the Universe. It was an hour long and it was a full experience of the body, soul, and mind.
   
2. In one door and out the other - there is a strange intensity that I've felt in the first week of teaching. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that when one class is leaving the room, the next one starts filing in. There is no breathing room, which is fine - it's just taking some getting used to. If I'm not ready for the entire day when the sun rises, there's no chance to catch up. As each class runs into the next, the days kind of feel the same way. I'm hoping Labor Day weekend will allow me to get a day ahead of the game... but let's be honest, it will probably just allow me to get a day's worth of barbequing.
   
3. Kids are hilarious - the ones who are intentionally trying to be funny are pretty darn funny, but I get waaaaay more of a kick out of the obvious suck-ups and the ones who think they are way more hardcore than they actually are. It took all my energy to stay stern during the lunch detention I gave today, because all I wanted to do was laugh and tell this kid, "You're smart and you think you're being tough, but you're really just a kid and I can see right through your bratiness."
   
4. No Se - I guess I'd always known that when families move from Mexico or Latin America or the Middle East or South America and take up residence in... say, Houston TX - there's a chance that their children haven't ever encountered much English before. But I didn't even begin to realize the significance of the difficulties these students face until I found myself teaching a roomfull of students and noticing the blank smiles of the 5 or so who know very little English beyond "I don't speak English." And the swears, of course. By the end of the week, we got into a little groove where I was able to group these students with other kids who have a firm grasp on both English and Spanish... but truly providing these kids with the education they need (or even determining what that looks like), will be a huge undertaking this year.
   
5. Perpetually Planning - Jen "J-Dubs" Wells once told me that she could spend every waking minute planning and preparing, but there still would be more that she could do for her students. Like most of the teachery things she's said, it went way over my head at the time, but also like many of the teacher things she's said, it was right on the money. I think my biggest battle with teaching will be finding that balance. I've already come to terms with the fact that I will enter every class with an imperfect lesson (a tough but necessary pill to swallow), but I'll need to keep pushing myself to be as efficient and balanced as I can without lowering the bar for myself or my students.
6. Grading takes forever - holy crap! As a math guy, I thought I'd crunch some numbers. So my 85-or-so students took their beginning of the year diagnostic test to see what math skills they're coming in with. If I only took 2 minutes to grade each one and track each student's score, we're looking at 3 hours of grading... and 2 minutes is not very realistic. I can't imagine being a writing teacher!
   
7. Great Success! - there have been a few choice moments when a lesson or activity that I've put together has totally hit the mark. (There have been may other moments, but let's stay positive today). And there is NO BETTER FEELING IN THE WORLD than looking around at a room of students that are excited, hard at work, and learning. I hope to make it happen more often than 15 seconds or so each day...

I hope hasn't sounded dreary or whiney, because my experience has been great so far. I've shaken my head at the cliche that always gets dropped - that "teaching/TFA is the most challenging and rewarding thing I've ever done..." but I can't think of a better way to describe it. It's been exhausting in ways that I haven't known before... but there is great joy in there somewhere.

-Mr. Camann