one week from today I will be handing over the keys to my school. i have known all school year that this would be my last. i have been filled with emotions; relief, sadness, excitement, worry, and peace. i know this is the right step for our family but it doesn't come without some tears. geneva elementary has been my home for the past 7 years. 7 years! i can't believe i've taught 7 years. i've never done anything for this long. i've been reflecting on the lessons that teaching has taught me. this is more for myself than anything. i know over time these memories and feelings will fade so i wanted to record them now.
my first day teaching was probably one of the worst teaching days i have ever had. i was overwhelmed. i had very little staff support. i didn't know how to ask for help. i came home that night around 9:00 exhausted. i was between apartments and living in my parents basement, my mom came down and asked how the first day went. i just cried - no, sobbed. the snot-dripping-air-sucking kind of cry. i didn't know what i had gotten myself into. the next 9 months were long and hard. i had the class from hell. i worked 12+ hour days and still brought work home. i gained a good 20 pounds that year. i was depressed and had no idea where my life was going.
before school started i spent hours decorating my classroom and putting up a big paper tree that stretched across the ceiling of my room. about halfway through the year it was announced that every classroom in our school was going to be repainted and everything must come off the walls. All those hours of work wasted. the classrooms were painted one by one. when it was my turn i ripped down the tree, along with everything else on my walls, moved everything to the center of the room and took the "essentials" down the hall to a room half the size of mine.
my temporary classroom had no hooks or cubbies for the students to hang their backpacks on so each morning the students would line up infront of our paint-fume room where they would hang their packs and collect supplies they would need for the day. along with no hooks/cubbies, there were no desks, only tables which quickly filled with the clutter of folders, pencil boxes, papers, pencils, and crayons. i hated teaching in that room!
each classroom took about one week to paint. after 2 weeks mine was still not finished. the painter had broken up with his fiance during the week and was unable to finish the job. i had to move back into my half painted classroom. i spent several hours moving desks and bookshelves back into their places. a few weeks later, a new painter arrived to finish the job... we repeated the process. i ended up holding parent-teacher conferences in my tiny-cluttered-closet-of-a-classroom. that was fun. to top it off, i was given byu cohorts that week. (two education students that spend three weeks in your classroom.) so there i was, a struggling first year teaching, trying desperately to keep my head above water, moving back and forth between classrooms, and now with two college students watching me fall on my face. i remember being so tired and beyond the point of tears.
that first year i met my friend jenni. she was on my 4th grade team and was also a first year teacher. her year could not have been more different than mine. first of all, she had a great group of students. and second, jenni was born to be a teacher. it came so naturally to her. for a long time i looked at her, and how much she loved teaching, and wondered what was wrong with me. teaching was so easy for her, i'd watch her leave at 4:00 everyday while i was staying until 7 or 8... sometimes 9. i have come to learn one thing: jenni was meant to be a teacher because it was her passion and something she could give. i was meant to be a teacher because i needed to be taught.
i wanted to quit that first year. but i'm not a quitter, i never have been. so i stuck it out and i'm sitting here, 7 years later, so grateful that i did.
February 2025
6 months ago
