If I could make my blog post today sing the Hallelujah chorus, I would. Today is what I needed. Today was the boost of encouragement I’ve been looking for but haven’t been able to find over the previous few days.
I woke up this morning dreading the day, so unexcited to even be getting out of bed. I got to school and this feeling persisted until I was ready to do math. Math, the bane of my existence. Math, the source of my pain and suffering for the last four weeks. Math, my enemy. Let me tell you, I WAS WORRIED. I was very, very worried. After yesterday’s fiasco, who knew what to expect today. I just knew it was going to be crazy. I just knew I was going to end up crying in the bathroom or something. And once again, I am still dumb enough to believe I can ever predict how a day in kindergarten is going to go for me.
It was great. It was more than great. It was fantastic! I am still a little dumbfounded at how much of a success it was. I did everything Aryn talked about yesterday – I waited to get their attention but kept talking to them so that I would keep it. I stopped between every step and waited for them to put their eyes on me. I went around to each table after each step to make sure everyone was caught up with me. I praised them when they did a good job. I asked questions to keep them engaged. I had them put their hands on the head, knees, opposite ears…I did it all. And by golly, it worked! Of course it did – someone who has been teaching kindergarten since I was IN kindergarten can give some pretty amazing advice to someone who has no idea what she is doing. After it went so well in the morning, I knew I wanted to be evaluated in the afternoon. I just knew it was going to be good – or at the very least, better than yesterday. I talked with Aryn before I did it again and she gave me some more excellent advice on how to extend the lesson and get the kids excited and engaged. I did that, too, and of course it went amazingly. She evaluated me and I got a really positive review (something I’ve been needing lately).
I think I am going to be okay. Looking back on yesterday, it all seems so dramatic, but that is honestly how I felt. I am so glad that I decided to start this blog. Making myself sit down every day and write my thoughts – my REAL thoughts, not the professional academic ones I write for my student teaching binder – helps me to remember them. As long as I can read the words I wrote, I will remember how I felt when I wrote them. It’s interesting how we recognize our own writing immediately. I could read any sentence from any one of my lesson plans out of context and still know that it was mine. I know that if I came back to this blog in 10 years, I would still be able to feel the way I felt when I wrote it. It is such a strange sensation to not just remember how something felt, but actually feel it again when reading about it. It happens to me now when I read diary entries from junior high, and it will happen to me years from now when I read these posts again. I will never forget how confused I was during the first week of school and had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. I will never forget how excited I was during parent-teacher conferences. I will never forget how devastated I was yesterday when I felt like everything was falling apart around me. And now that I’ve written this, I will never forget how relieved I am today. Things went right. For the first time this week, a day went right.
I am working my way over the mental mountain (or rather, mental molehill-turned-mountain) that is my self-criticism. I am trying to consciously say good things about myself. I did this in high school whenever I stressed myself out over something or when I felt like everything was falling apart: I would look myself in the mirror and say all the things I could think of that were good about me. It sounds so cheesy, but sometimes we need to tell ourselves that we’re doing okay. That we’re going to come out of this on the other side a better, stronger person for all of the time and tears we’re putting into it. I just KNOW am going to be a good teacher, because I’m already a better one than I was when I started all of this. I hope that even by just reading this blog – even if you’ve never seen me in the classroom – you can see that this journey has been hard, but that it has been (and will be) worth it. May 4th will be a joyous day, but not just because I will be “finished” (we’re never really finished, are we?). It will be happy because I will be better…and that’s the whole reason I’m here, anyway.
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