Getting...somewhere.

          I went to my room again today with my best friend, Amber.  It is all a little overwhelming.  There were piles of books and I'm not sure what to do with them.  I finally met the teacher that I have been texting.  Here is a little bit of background information.  There are four high school English teachers, one for each grade.  Two of those teachers left this year and the other two there I will refer to as Mrs. S and Mrs. H.  The other new English teacher has many years of experience and I am the only newbie newbie teacher, I say newbie twice because I am both new to the school and the profession. Mrs. S gave me a cart and told me that I can go through the huge stacks of books that lined my room and figure out the ones that I wanted to keep and put the ones that I didn't want in the room of the other newbie teacher.  I got rid of around one third of the books!  The other books I really don't know what to do with because I am not sure what books I am going to teach I didn't want to get rid of anything that had to do with American Literature.  I found two boxes full of the book The Catcher in the Rye so I might teach that instead of The Scarlet Letter, but then again I am not really sure. 
          My friend and I made quite a bit of headway, even with our two little boys running around fighting over cars and getting in the way.  Amber worked on one of my bulletin boards and got it looking awesome.  This is going to be where I put the calendar, but I needed to laminated the pieces and cut them out.

 

          We put my desk where I think I want it. I created a little bit of a box for me, but it is only space in the room that are off limits to my students. 

           I have been looking for a lectern for my classroom.  I tried a couple of places and couldn't find one that I liked our was in my budget.  Today I found one in the room of the newbie teacher.  I don't know if it was one of those things that the teacher in the room before had just left or if it was the newbie's lectern.  There were several other lecterns that looked the same floating around school.  Hopefully I get to keep it. 

          One of the things that I am slowly learning about the teaching profession is that it seems as if every question that I ask is met with unsure answers or are left hanging in the air for me to figure out on my own.  I am getting so stressed out trying to figure out what is really expected of me when no one will tell me.  I asked if there was a  classroom set of Scarlet Letter books, didn't get answer.  Asked if the Scarlet Letter was taught in that grade, no answer.  I asked if I was supposed to turn in lesson plans, when I am supposed to do the training to be able to teach AP classes, if there were any specific books or stories I was expected to teach, and about twenty other ones that have yet to be answered. 
           I will continue to muddle my way through my first year of teaching as best I can.  I hope that you will join me. 

It is time to join the other teachers.

All the courses have been taken, the student teaching experience has been had and I got a contract with a local high school.  Now what?  That is the question of the moment.  The answer…  Well I don’t know.  I have yet to figure out how I want to setup my room, or create a lesson plan, or anything else productive it seems.  I have bought a lot of stuff though.  I have some posters; an awesome lamp; a really neat desk organizer for my paperclips, rubber bands and push pins; stickers, I have been told that high school students love them; and many other little teaching supplies.  

My head fills with questions…

How do I put a room together?  Where do I put the desks?  How do I create lesson plans that go with C-Scope?  How do I differentiate the Pre-AP classes from the other classes?  What books do I teach?  What short stories?  What activities do I have the students complete?  What clips do I show?  What consequences do I give for misbehaviors?  What about good behavior?  What do I put on my word wall?  How do I make a word wall?  How will I seat the students on the first day of school?  How do I keep track of the work that students that are absent need?  How do I keep up with how far each period got in the lesson or reading?  How do I know the students got the lesson? 

The list is endless!  Every time I open a book to start planning fifteen more pop into my head.  Is there a CD floating around the school that is supposed to go with this text book?  Can I use a YouTube video?  Would these words be good ones for my word wall?  How am I going to set that word wall up?  What about a tree?  What about a board?  Do the words have to be up there all year?  Or can I put them up and down as we go?  Am I going to make copies of these stories or have them use the books?  How do I want them to take notes over these two stories?  Am I going to grade the notes?  Do I give them a hand out to fill out while reading?  Do have them work in groups or individually? 

The most important questions is am I ready for this?  I think I am, but have doubts everyday.  How could I not?  I am being given over a hundred minds to fill.  How can you not have doubts?