First Year Madness

The first thing I did after the bell went on the last day of week 11, term 1 (aside from down an easter egg or 3) was to sit and brain dump a list of my reflections about how this term had gone. Reflecting is something I see the importance in - it's such a great way for me to identify the things that aren't working as well as they should be, and recognize those things that went well. Term 1 was hard. By the Friday of week 9 I was questioning how I would last through til the end (I think I was also questioning this on day 1 of term 1). Dealing with a whole new lifestyle, a new career, a new style of teaching for the school, a new group of 52 kids to get to know and try to form relationships with I was completely and utterly exhausted. Real life had slipped out of my mind and each moment of the day seemed to be devoted to trying to stay slightly ahead of the workload that threatened to over take me. My to-do lists were intimidatingly long, my bedroom was getting ridiculo...

One thing I love is writing. Since I can remember I have loved creating stories, describing new worlds in with my worlds, creating best friends and evil enemies from the characters I dreamt up.  As a teacher I thought that this passion for writing would transfer over in to teaching it easily, so that I would immediately be an expert at getting each and every child to love writing as much as I do.  This obviously did not happen (everything I do as a teacher serves to remind me that I need to stay humble). Instead I struggle to teach some of those basic skills that came more naturally to me as a child, I struggle to balance encouraging the creative passion for writing with the expectations as to teaching it in a thoughtfully constructed but sometimes artificial feeling way, I struggle to encourage those writers who haven't yet found their voice or their confidence to put pen to paper.  Luckily despite all the struggling writing is still one of my favour...