Frustration Venting

Can I just say that it is extremely frustrating to be the only teacher in the entire building that has four preps?

For those of you not familiar with teacher lingo, preps do not refer to prep periods but rather the different courses that a teacher teaches in one day. If you only teach 8th grade science, you have one prep. Me, I teach French 7, French 8, ENL Beginner and ENL Intermediate. All in one day. 

Don't get me wrong, I've probably go insane if I taught the same class six periods in one day. But being a new teacher and having the biggest workload is getting to me more than I'd ever dare let on. I'm supposed to be an expert in not one but two different fields with two separate levels. I can talk about my expertise until I'm blue on the face, but to be teaching French only to have an administrator come in saying we have a newcomer with no English that needs help in a class...to teaching English and having an administrator come in with a Native Frenchman wondering if he can sit in on my classes...not to mention the typical popping in to see how I'm doing teaching my lessons because evaluations will start in two months and those decide my future as a teacher...

Part of me is waiting for someone to tell me they think I'm struggling and I'll just explode asking if they could handle cramming everything I do into one day. Or sometimes my facilitator wants to talk about lesson plans three weeks down the road because we have new standards so we have to make a new curriculum and I know where he's coming from and he doesn't have the background to make all these decisions but I'm dealing with exactly the same issue with new French books, new French teacher, and loss of parallelism between last years curriculum and the high school curriculum. 

...I'm legitimately on my own. No one else does what I do and certainly not to the extent. I know it will get easier with time but I'm hoping I make it long enough to actually feel like I'm doing more than just surviving. 

Crossing the Starting Line and Taking Those First Steps

I really am sorry for the lack of posts these past couple of months. I hate to say that I've been too busy, but I truly have been. It has been a marathon of running around since I started teaching and I'm still waiting for that one moment where I can take a second to breathe. Still hasn't happened yet...

Going back to when I last posted, I actually no longer work at the movie theater. The team I joined and grew to love started falling apart by people leaving (moving on up so I can't complain, but it's still sad) and not feeling as comfortable with those that replaced them. While I do identify as an extrovert, I definitely do not get along with everyone. I went to the general manager and told him how I was feeling, and I was able to leave on extremely good terms.

Up until about three days before the first day of school for my township, I was prepared to teach ENL to high schoolers. Of course that's just too easy of a job so I got a call from the assistant super intendent asking if I'd be alright switching to teaching half French half ENL at the middle school. He also said that both principals had already approved, of course implying that I'd look like a total ass if I said no. Not to mention he said the French program would turn into an online program if I didn't say yes. So with absolutely no pressure at all (sarcasm) I traded in my falcons for the mighty mustangs. And of course with three days until students arrive, I was scrambling to get everything into my new classroom and set up for the students. There were definitely some days where I came to the school, left for a meeting, and then came BACK to the school because if I left for the day I'd be so behind. There's part of me that feels like I still need to come in on Saturdays just to try and get SOMETHING finished.

Despite the rocky start, the school year has actually been pretty darn fantastic so far. I've finally gotten to meet the teaching whom I'm replacing, along with gather some insight on this school, I feel a little on my own because the way the school has me and my schedule, I'm the only actual ENL teacher. There's one teacher that works with ENL students in a small learning community, but there are native students in there as well and she does not focus on the ENL WIDA standards. There's also a facilitator, who is a licensed teacher but not actually trained or versed in ENL. Basically he's looking for a social studies teaching job and this is his foot in the door for the district. Can I blame him? Absolutely not, that's where I was last year...but at least I had the ENL license when I was in that position. But anyway, the school talks about how we have more EL students this year than ever before, but yet the main EL teacher (me) is only teaching three periods a day...with a total of 26 students (I'll give you a hint, there are more than 100 in this school alone...) I'm not sure if they're utilizing our staff to the best of their ability.

I'm still wrapping me head around this being a permanent job. I don't know if it's because every other teaching experience has been sectioned off into pretty little amounts (8 weeks here, 12 there, 16 there, etc) and this basically is exactly what I make of it. It's kind of powerful. It makes me want to move again (even though I've had more than my fair share of moving in the past year) and be closer to the township and learn how to be part of this community.

I was telling all of this to Rachel, and she made the comment that I've started the rest of my life. It took me a moment to understand what she meant by that, because I feel no different today than I did last week than I did four months ago than I did a year ago. I'm still just going along doing what I need to do to be successful. But she's right. I've graduated college and obtained a job in LITERALLY the definition of my degree. I've moved out of my parents house and am paying for my own place of residency. I pay for insurance, utilities, rent, food, my own activities...I'm at that point of my life where the gun has sounded, and I've started racing down the track of life.

On one hand I hate that it's true. I feel like I'm always going to be reaching for that next achievement...whatever it may be. Grad school, buying a house, getting married, promotions, etc and so forth because I'm sure if I'll ever get used to the race, even if I stay exactly where I am for the next five years. The race is still going on and I'm in it...I'm just getting used to it still.

The rest of my life has started. I am 100% officially an adult. Who did this? Who let this happen?