And Then the Students Came...

Today was the first day of my school in my district (and, I'm pretty sure in every other public school district in the state). I went into things very nervous, it's hard to plan for the first day, especially when you don't know your students. My aides were in a tizzy, worrying about how we'd cover all of our students, which I'll admit, still has me worried. In short, we were all worked up and on each other's nerves.


And then the students came. When that happens, everything changes about a school. The focus shifts from the staff to the students, as it rightfully should. Everyone pitches in, does what is needed and comes through for the students. Yes, we're still worried about coverage, and I think we could better serve the students with just one more para, even just a half-time para would make things considerably easier. But, when the students come, everyone does what the students need, and things get done. In short, it was a great day.


I've been in the educational field long enough to know that not every day will go this smoothly. Staff will be overworked, stretched thin, and exhausted. The students will drive us crazy on some days. And we will undoubtedly get on each other's nerves. There will be days whens students melt down and nobody gets to eat lunch. That's just the nature of the beast. But today, we managed to do what was needed when it was needed. And that's a good thing.


Overall, the day was a huge success. I got to know much more about the abilities of the kiddos on my case load. Then I got another student added to my case load (isn't life fun). Things went the way they should, and better than I could have hoped as a new teacher. I'm anxious to get back and see how things are different tomorrow. It will be another light day, I'm not going to start pulling kids until after the long weekend. Right now, I'm just getting an idea where the kiddos are, and planning for when the real teaching work starts next week.


But I won't worry about all that right now. Right now, I'm going to pick up my knitting needles for the first time in a week, and enjoy.

School Before Students

Unless you're a teacher, you may never think about or experience what a school is like without the students. First and foremost, it is quiet, very quiet, eerily quiet, disturbingly quiet. And if you comment on this unnatural quiet, you will inevitably be told to "enjoy it while it lasts," which all in all is not bad advice.

New teacher orientation started last Thursday, and I feel like I've been going nonstop ever since then. First was a day and a half with all the other new teachers (twenty three of us in all). It was a lot of meeting new people, which I never am comfortable with, but I did alright. 

Then all the staff returned to work, which led to meeting more people on Friday afternoon. I got to meet the paraprofessionals that I will be working with, who, understandably were full of questions that I, understandably, did not have answers to.

Friday was followed by my last two days at the grocery store. The schedule had me down for two opening cash office shifts. The cash office is my favorite place to work, but I really would have used some time to sleep in. My last days at the grocery store passed with no fan fair, which after working there for six years, was a little disappointing. My grocery career is now over, I hope.

Monday morning brought me back to school for the staff kick off breakfast. It was vaguely reminiscent of the days of walking through the cafeteria, looking for a place to sit, but I found some soon enough. After breakfast was the official kick off program, where I had to stand up and be recognized as a new teacher (which I dislike), and a guest speaker, John Antonetti, who was surprisingly entertaining. I usually hate guest speakers at things like this, but he did a fantastic job. Then back to the school for some work in the classroom, which was followed by the never ending payroll and benefits meeting (don't get me wrong, I'm all for both pay and benefits, but this meeting was ridiculous).

Tuesday brought an all staff meeting at my school, where I had to stand up and introduce myself (which I really dislike) and more classroom time. A lot of that time was spent reading IEPs in the hopes of getting to know my students. Tuesday night brought our open house, which gave me the chance to meet students and parents, all but one and I have met the mother. This got me excited for the school year to begin.

Today, panic set in. Students are arriving tomorrow, and I feel in no way prepared for them. The next two days will be chaos, no matter how much more I prepare, but I'm hoping I have enough coverage figured out to get us through tomorrow and Friday. I'll use the long weekend to hammer out the schedule details and continue on from there. 

Tomorrow the halls will be filled with students, and I'm sure I will miss the quiet from the past few days. 

When It Rains, It Pours

It's been a time of celebration in my household. After a year and a half of searching, applying, interviewing, and rejection, I have finally landed a teaching job! A real, actual, full time with benefits, in charge of my own classroom, teaching job. A true to the whirlpool that is my life, it all happened very quickly and at the absolute last possible minute.


After a soul-crushing number of interviews, and an equally soul-crushing review of my interview skills with the Director of Pupil Services at one of the districts where I sub, I was seriously at the point of giving up on a teaching career. There was some amount of allure in a mindless sort of 40 hour per week job. And as I'm pushing 30, the lack of retirement was getting scarier and scarier.  I began searching for other jobs in the area that might be willing to hire a currently underemployed teacher.  However, I still searched for teaching jobs, kept an eye on the market and occasionally applied for the posted jobs.


It the past couple of weeks, I have applied for four teaching jobs. A couple of days after applying for one, I got an email setting up an interview for the next week. I ended up having to shift my entire work schedule around to make it, but I did go in for the interview. Despite (or maybe due to) the cruel frank review of my interview skills, I decided to go in swinging for the fences (I know, I'm not a baseball fan, but none of the sports I actually follow have as good of a metaphor). My husband recommended that I go in with my customer service attitude (after 6 years in the local grocery store, I've had to smile at and chat with a lot of people, ones I liked and others, not so much). I left the interview feeling pretty good, but didn't want to get my hopes up.


On my way to that interview, another of the schools I applied to called to set up another last minute interview. They were looking for a long-term sub for a semester in a position that could turn into a full-time position. And the school was on the fringe of the commuter radius I established at the start of this never ending job search. Not ideal, but better than nothing, and they were willing to interview me on a day I had off from the store.


The following day, I had a pretty good omen. The school I had interviewed at called one of my references. Well, that's a step farther than I had gotten on a lot of these interviews. Again, I didn't want to get my hopes up, but they were starting to rise.


The next day rolled around, and the interview at the second school. I didn't feel that one went nearly as well, but the drive sucked and it was only for a semester, so I didn't get too upset about it. What I did start to get upset about was the fact that I hadn't heard from the first school. I was feeling pretty down, but then a call from the third school raised my spirits.


Then, it happened. The first school called back and said they were recommending me for the position. I needed to come in for what they called a "second interview" with the school superintendent. I was worried about this second interview, even though the teachers I talked to made it sound more like a formality. Not wanting to jinx anything, but feeling pretty confident, I told a select group of friends and relatives (that's right, feel honored if you were in that group).  


The weekend passed. Before setting up the second interview, I heard back from school number 2 (the interview I thought I bombed). Apparently, they also wanted to hire me for the long term sub job. I'm not going to lie, that one shocked me. The school needed an answer right away, so I took a bit of a gamble and told them I had already accepted another job (hoping that it was indeed a formality). Of course, the second interview was scheduled at the same time as the interview for the third school, so I had to take another risk and cancel the interview at the third school (really, really hoping that it was a mere formality).


And yesterday, I went into my second interview. Believe me, I breathed a sigh of relief when some of the superintendent's first words to me were, "The committee recommended you for the position, so I'm going to recommend you." After a chat with him, I had an actual teaching job. An actual teaching job where orientation started in only two days, with students starting school in only eight total days (see what I mean about the last possible moment?).


Despite the rush of all of it, I thrilled to have this job. The school district has a wonderful reputation and everyone that I've met seems to be friendly and helpful.  I alternate between that feeling of elation and the feeling of terror when I think about being in charge of a classroom, a caseload of students, and two paraprofessionals in a little more than a week.


I'll be teaching, at the elementary level, students with severe disabilities. I've visited my school, and seen my classroom. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that both are beautiful. I have access to a wide variety of technology and professionals to help my students. Starting tomorrow, I'm looking at nine days straight of work (this weekend will be my last weekend at the grocery store), but I'm excited about it. We will see how I feel after two days of orientation, two days in the grocery store cash office (yuppers, 5:30 am shifts for my last days), three days of in-service, an open house for parents, and two days of students.


Wish me luck as I embark on this (hopefully) wonderful new journey!

Day One Done

Today was my first day student teaching at my elementary school placement. Actually, it was an inservice day, so I didn't really do any teaching, that won't happen until next Tuesday.

My day started early, with me arriving at my school by 7:20 am. I met up with my supervising teacher, who gave me a tour of a couple of other district schools. Then we wandered about our school for a little while, where she introduced me to many, many staff members. And I can barely remember any names.

Next, we had the school faculty meeting. I was then officially introduced to the entire school, met many more people whose names I will hopefully learn before the quarter ends. I also got to meet the other student teacher, a future art teacher from UW Stout, and then proceeded to spend some time helping my supervising teacher with classroom set up. I also went over the IEPs of some of my students, trying to get at least a little familiar with the names.

This afternoon we had the first round of parent conferences. Between meeting with the parents of some of my students, I assisted parents with filling out forms, and then proceeded to help sort and organize the forms.

The day ended at 6:30 this evening. Tomorrow, I'll be back at the school at the same time, and then head over to the high school for a district wide kick off breakfast and meeting. I'm hoping to get an opportunity to at least meet my supervising teachers for next quarter from the middle school while we are at the district wide meeting. There will also be another round of conferences tomorrow starting at 3.

The Education of Nicole Cram

Sitting in the Davies Center at UWEC is an unacceptable way to spend my time. I've decided this. I get unbelievable irratated at the people sitting around me, today the main source of irratation comes from a guy a couple of tables over who is talking so loudly I must assume that his table companions are deaf. Everyone in the place is shooting him irratated looks, to which he is completely oblivious. Thanks to this conversation, I am learning more than I ever wanted to about movies that I will never watch. I can't help but resent the tution money that has been paid so I can sit here.

Thankfully, on most Tuesdays, I have a field placement at Chippewa Falls High School (Chi-Hi, a great school nickname, I must say). However, this week the kiddos are on their mid-winter break, giving me six hours to kill between classes. (bless my procrastinating heart that put off the stupid computer class until the last possible minute, creating the six hour gap between classes) But back to the newest placement,this is my first placement outside of an elementary school and I am loving it. I'm working with mainly CD students, and they are great. I'm in their tech. ed. class, where they have a little business making wooden frames, signs, and stuff with laser engraving. The guys have a great time designing the stuff on the computer and its great to watch. Then I go to a job skills class in one of the computer labs (those who are wondering Chi Hi, much nicer than the Tomah High of my memories). The job skills class nicely fits in with my experience, as I'm currently in a transition skills class at the university. I then spend my last hour tutoring students with LD in one of the resource rooms. This combination works great as I am getting placement experience for three classes, Transition and Career Services, Methods for Students with Moderate and Severe Disabilities and Methods for Secondary Students with Mild Disabilities. The teacher that I am working with is great, which restores my faith in cooperating teachers after last semester.

However, four (or is it five) weeks into the semester, and the stress is beginning to get to me. I have night classes three days a week, and usually close at the store at least one additional night per week. This gives me limited evenings at home. Of course, I have the added benefit of not leaving home until 2 on Mondays and Wednesday, but it still feels like I am getting nothing done at home.

The lack of home achievements is especially distrubing when I consider the vast amount of baby blankets that I have left to knit. I am about halfway done with both Silas and Petra's blankets, with only eight and four weeks left until their respective due dates. I am beginning to get concerned that I will never finish either blanket. On the other had, I would love to be done with those two blankets so I can knit something that I want. I only had a breif break after my Christmas knitting, which I used to make my llama hat. (quite possibly the greatest thing that I have ever created)See, it is pretty cool, isn't it? I'm so impressed with my ability to master colorwork so well. Anyway, of course, this has me dying to work on more projects for myself, which I cannot do until the baby blankets are finished. (except for the obligatory pair of socks that I have on the needles, the diagonal rib socks from Interweave knits)