Let's Be Honest.
Since I've started teaching I have taught solely in title-1/plus-1 schools and there is a lot of emotional struggle that goes along with these environments that I wanted to be completely honest about. As cute and colorful as I like to make my classroom environment, there's a lot more that goes on in my room that is not so bright and colorful. There is a lot about teaching that is not perfectly laminated and whole punched to perfection. We tend to post the cutest activity we have done that month, the best behaved class on the carpet, or the most beautiful classroom set-up but we're not honest about the other days of the week that weren't so polished and well maintained.
So...here goes...hold on because it's going to be a slightly bumpy ride!
My First Class
I got my first job during my senior internship in December of 2014, if I remember correctly which I probably don't! My college allowed me to leave my internship about two weeks early to take over in my new classroom. The class that would be mine was a second grade class in an inner city area of Daytona Beach, FL. It was a title-1 school, as well as a plus-1 school as mentioned above. Plus-1, if you're not aware, means that we go to school an hour longer than most elementary schools. When I was offered the job I was told about some hard to handle students that would soon be my very own. There were 6 of them, and they had been moved out of the classroom until a steady teacher took over--in comes naive, little 'ole me!
The rest of the class was with a substitute while my behavior challenges were waiting it out with more seasoned teachers who already had a good handle on their classrooms. My first day, all 6 students were placed back into their classroom environment and to be completely honest I was terrified. Now please don't get me wrong, I knew what I was getting into. I come from a town outside of Philadelphia and had worked with inner city Philly kids. This is what I wanted! I love a challenge and I can handle it! But this, for a new teacher, was way more than I had bargained for. These weren't the kids you hear about in teaching stories of these amazing teachers who turned the tough kid into a complete angel. Oh, no no no. These were the ones that nightmares are made of and they were all in my new class.
I started out with no materials and a loaded roster, so I quickly started to try to bring in materials to compliment my lessons, maybe having more stuff would help them to behave?! If they saw how much effort I was putting in to make their classroom nice for them?! Wrong. So wrong. More stuff was just more stuff to throw, or steal, or dump, or flush down the toilet. Yes, FLUSH DOWN THE TOILET!!! Posters were ripped off the walls, everything I wrote on the board was erased and not by me. It was a mad house.
When I originally started the bulletin boards were red and black, leftover from the previous teacher. Hell to the NO was I leaving red and black on these walls, they did not need any aggressive colors, so I tore it down and put up a light blue with yellow trim. Things were starting to at least LOOK better, and that was a start.
As the next 6 months proceeded I went home crying just about every day. Some days I was too tired to cry, yes that's possible, but most days I was completely capable of letting them flow. Every morning I dreaded going in and started sleeping in as long as I could to trick myself into thinking I didn't have to go. But they were my class, and there were kids in that class who were some of the most incredible kids I knew. They were sweet, sensitive, and caring and despite the chaos that the 6 out-liars created, they didn't change their hearts or souls for them. They were on my team and I knew I had to hold out for them. I came in to school every day for them. I didn't realize at the time that that's what I was doing, but I was. Those kids needed me.
I started to learn then what it meant to work in a title-1 school of this level. I started to realize that I wasn't teaching there for the reasons that I thought. You've heard the story, "Oh I want to work in a low-income school and change their lives! I want to help make a difference! I want to change these children and make them better!"
Ya, ya, ya. I hear ya, honey!
While of course I believe that teaching in these schools makes an incredible difference, it really does. I am still working in one for that reason. That's not the real reason I was there anymore. I started to realize that I was there for the kids who didn't create havoc. I was there for the kids who wanted so desperately to learn and have fun but couldn't because someone was almost always having a meltdown. Sometimes, just sometimes, it's not your job to save the one having the meltdown, it's your job to be there for the ones who are doing their very best everyday to hold it together. They need you just as much as the one with the meltdown, they just show it in a different way.
A lot of things happened in those 6 months, I'll name just a few for kicks and giggles!
How about the time I was stabbed in the hand with a pencil?! That was a fun day! Or the time I had to put a kid in a box made out of tape on the floor because he couldn't handle having any free range movement. This actually worked incredibly well for him, even though it was a kindergarten behavioral strategy. Then there was the time that one of my students threatened to get me fired because I told him he couldn't go to the bathroom since he had just been in there not 10 minutes before. Or the time when one of them brandished his belt at 2 or 3 of the other kids and then held it up at me. I always loved hearing "I HATE WHITE PEOPLE!!" being yelled across the room from one of my little babies, "I love ya too, man!!" is the only response there really is to that one!
Looking back now, those days make for quite entertaining stories, but in the middle of it I didn't understand. This wasn't what I was prepared for. No one could prepare you for this. Then again, no one can prepare a class of students to lose their teacher and then get stuck with 2 substitutes. Kids who have people in and out of their lives aren't going to trust you easily, especially when their classroom environment has been so unsteady for the first 6 months. I made an agreement though, I was not going to leave them. I would tell them that too, almost everyday,
"I'm not going anywhere. It's my job to get you to third grade and that's what I am going to do. Between me and you, I will be the last one standing. I'm not going anywhere."
That first year of teaching affected me a lot. I learned even more. It terrified me for my second year. I hate to do this to you, but I don't want to load more on you than you can mentally handle all at once. My second year wasn't much better, and in some ways it was much worse, so until next time...what stories do you have from your first years of teaching? Did you start out with awesome students and an awesome environment?! Did you have to work hard for it?!
Stay Trendy,
Kelli
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