So for those of you who care (which I imagine is only immediate family and possibly a couple of close friends) -- I just wanted to tell you how my first week back in the workforce went.
It was good. It was an easier transition than I had feared. I don't think my kids or family suffered (or even noticed) at all. I found that my afternoons were a little more hectic, but not too bad. I had to cut back on some time wasters (and I still need to do more of that), but that is a good thing.
Since I lost my 2 hours of "alone time" in the mornings, I needed to re-institute the age old tradition of "quiet time" for Sadie in the afternoons. That is where Sadie plays by herself for 30 minutes or so in her room so that I can get something done. She resisted the idea at first, but once she had done it, she loved it and bragged about it to the rest of the family at dinner, "I had QUIET time today!" as if it was a great accomplishment. Tee!hee!
The wearing dressy clothes wasn't really that bad at all. And I was so worried about it. Luckily I never throw anything away. Ever. So I still had a couple great pairs of slacks from my days as a teacher (yes, 7 years ago) and I had a few pairs of hand-me-down slacks from a dear friend. So I am fine for now. I could use some dress socks and another shirt or two. But it is definitely do-able and not nearly as uncomfortable as I had feared.
As for the job itself...I like it. Some of the kids are a bit challenging (behavior-wise) and I am going to have to dust off my old "classroom management" skills, but I am enjoying it overall. It is challenging academically too. Teaching the English language is so ridiculous. There are about 5 different ways to make each of the vowel sounds and I can hardly keep them straight...I don't know how we expect kids to learn them. For instance, do you know what sound "ie" makes? I assumed long 'i' (as in pie), but it also makes long 'e' (as in field). And then there are all the random spelling rules that I never knew. Did you know that you don't end a word with a 'c'....you use 'ck.' Or that you don't end a word with one 's' 'f' or 'l' it doubles to become 'ss' 'ff' or 'll'? (But before you send in comments showing me exceptions to the rule -- this is the English language we are talking about -- of course there are exceptions to EVERY RULE!!!) Which makes me wonder why we even learn rules. And don't even get me started on 'schwa' vowels. I detest them already! We are trying to teaching basic phonics to these boys, but it is NOT basic at all. It is so complicated!! I teach two 6th grade and four 5th grade boys. These are kids who read at anywhere from a 1st grade to 3rd grade level. We have a long road ahead, but I have great materials to use and great teachers to work with.
It was a successful week, I logged a total of 8.75 hours. Woohoo!
3 comments:
I enjoyed your report, glad it is going well so far! It is actually a lot more frustrating trying to teach older kids because of attitudes and problems that exist if they've gotten that far without catching on to reading. You'll do great though!
Congrats! One week under your belt! Yes, I think older kids would frustrate me. My fav is 2nd gr. First graders just have so much to learn & it overwhelms some of my kiddos. Third graders are starting to get that little attitude, so it starts to get harder. Anyway, you're doing a great work. I'm proud of you. Go schwa sound! Why do they call it that? It should be called the uhhhhh sound! :)
You are a blessing to those boys! Glad you are enjoying it. :)
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