My First Days as a "Legit" Teacher - It's Been Awesome!

I survived my first week teaching even though I’ve only had the students for two days.  It’s been wonderful, and things have gone just as good if not better than what I had envisioned.  I’ve been working my butt off, showing up early, and staying late (I’ve been one of the last people to leave these past two days).  The other teachers are friendly, the principal is so easy to speak to, my mentor/teacher that I’ve taken over for is a godsend, and my students are awesome!  My room is one of the first classrooms as you enter the building and is right across from the office so I get teachers and administration dropping in throughout the day.  I still have sooo much to learn though – I don’t know where everything is (the schools down here are split into different buildings spread out on the campus), the state/county requires different procedures and other things I’m not familiar with, I don’t know where the teacher’s work room is, and it’s truly very different, but I’m learning a little more each day.  The principal assured me not to worry about any of the technical stuff yet, but to just come to school and be ready to teach the kids, so that’s what I’m doing!

In just these past two days teaching, and the two previous days spent as “teacher work days,” I’m learning just how grateful I am for everything leading me up to this point.  Millikin truly did supply me with the knowledge and skills that I would need for this.  I look back and remember complaining about some of the assignments we did and how “pointless” they were, but now I see how valuable they actually were!  My student teaching and subbing has also been so beneficial with the hands-on experience and advice from veteran teachers that so kindly shared everything they knew with me.  I’ve always been thankful for these things, but now I feel this more than ever.  It was funny today when the principal asked me if the kids were any different down here than what I was used to back home, and I just had to laugh and say, “Sir, kids are kids!”  I did however go on to tell him how I get a huge kick out of all of the kids down here decked out from head to toe in camouflage – lunch boxes included. 

These kids are so awesome.  I’ve loved all of the kids that I’ve ever had the joy of sharing a classroom with, but something is just different about the kids here.  We are basically comprised of “home grown” kids who have family going back as far as they know living in this town, and we also have a lot of kids from military families.  The “home grown” kids are the ones I get the biggest kick out of.  Their accents are so thick, that I’ve had to ask some students to repeat what they are saying four different times (in which some occasions they just give up).  They live to go muddin’ in their trucks, hunt, fish, and just have a “good ol time!”  After reading some of the things that they have written, many of the kids lack confidence in their skills and knowledge, but it’s already apparent that they actually DO have a desire to learn.  Several of them have spoken to me telling me how they want to do well in this class, but they are worried.  I’ve reassured them that I’m going to help them the entire way.  They already know my expectations are high, but I know that they can do it.  I promised them that they will understand grammar, will be able to write a good research paper, and will learn to understand what they are reading.  I think that’s what I already love so much about these kids – you can see that they really do want to learn and don’t want to disappoint me.  And things like that – well, they make me work that much harder because I don’t want to let them down.  I told them how EVERY  DAY they are going to be reading for 20 minutes at the end of each class (here students have the same 4 – 90 minute classes every day for a semester), but that it’s not to be any school-assigned reading.  At first they said, “Well hey, some of us have library fines,” and I told them that I would bring in books that they could read.  I was happily surprised when they were actually excited about me doing this – it was not the reaction that I expected.  When I went over some of my classroom procedures and told them what they are to do if they don’t have their homework (which is basically my way of documenting their excuse as to why they don’t have it in case I receive that question from “momma” or “daddy”) I was met with the comment, “Hey, that’s actually pretty cool!”  It’s the little things like these that assure me that these kids do want to be here, and that they do want to learn.

I’ve gotten a huge smile about a lot of things already: my one student who legitimately goes by his nickname Bubba (even the office adheres to this); the student who still doesn’t understand double negatives no matter how I try and break it down (“I don’t have no plans”);  the student whose accent has been dubbed by his classmates as another language; the student I caught red-handed trying to sneak a dip in his mouth in the middle of class; how every conversation always winds up with hunting being the main topic; being called ma’am all day; the kids who say, “I can’t really read. I’m super slow at it, but I’ll volunteer anyways;” the way they all participate willingly; when they say, “Ma’am don’t be mad at me, but I lost that paper…”.  It’s only day two, but I totally love my students.  By the end of the day, I’m pretty sure I’ve picked up some temporary southern twang in my attempts to “communicate” with them. 

            It’s been a crazy, wild week, but I’ve received so much help, and I can’t say enough about my mentor/teacher that I took over for.  I honestly don’t know what I would do without her!  She has guided me every step of the way, while still somehow managing to let me do my own thing.  I know that has got to be extremely hard to do, but she’s got it down perfectly.  She gives me great advice, answers my questions honestly, offered me everything in the classroom that was hers – and I mean everything, supports my decisions, and is always sure to tell me when I’ve done an excellent job; she even paid for me so I can wear jeans on Friday since I, “don’t have a paycheck yet.”  I think she is probably the person I’ve gotten to know the best down here, aside from my roommate.  Needless to say, this lady is getting one heck of a Christmas present come next year.

            I am so happy with everything right now.  I have a great roommate, great students, great administration, and great co-workers.  Although everything has been very stressful, I am almost too happy to notice most days.  This is right.  This is where I belong.  This is what I needed.  I couldn’t ask for anything better than what I have right now!

My First Week in North Carolina

Wow, so I’ve been down here for a week now – I think!  It’s been super crazy, interesting, and completely new.  I took my parents back to the airport in Raleigh on Friday, and that was kind of hard.  When I decided to move, I never thought I would cry at all, but with each person I said goodbye to leading up to the move, I couldn’t help but cry.  My parents and I didn’t get emotional until right when I dropped them off, and then the waterworks started.  It was kind of surreal since I never left home for college or anything, and at the most always lived ten minutes from their house.  It was hard letting go, because they were the last thing from “home” – that familiarity that made me feel safe and protected.  Everyone has been asking how things have been going, so I’ll try to fill everyone in on some of my experiences thus far, but can’t promise everything will be in perfect order as it’s all been a whirlwind!

So to start out, I moved into a tiny two bedroom, one bathroom house with another girl who teaches at the school.  She’s just a couple months younger than me and seems very nice.  She’s engaged, and she is planning to be married by November, so with this come two things: 1) I’ll be moving before the year is over.  2) She’s usually spending time with him, leaving me all alone.   This is fine, but it’s taking some time to adjust to being “truly alone” as it feels.  I’ve made more phone calls to friends these past several days just to have someone talk to.

I went to the school with my parents on Thursday and met some people there.  Everyone has been super friendly and helpful – sharing with me any tidbits of information about anything and everything they can think of.  The principal assured my parents that they would take care of me, and he promised them that they would turn me into a southern girl.  Going along with this, I’m finally getting used to saying, “Yes ma’am,” “No ma’am,” “Yes sir,” and, “No sir.”  I caught myself on the phone with my mom tonight and I answered her with a good old, “yes ma’am,” so it must be working!

Saturday was a day of serious frustration.  I started the day out by deciding that I needed to do laundry, so I ran down to the dollar store and bought fabric softener sheets, and what I originally thought was detergent.  I got out to my car and realized I bought fabric softener and had to run back in.  Since we don’t yet have a washing machine, I see the one laundry mat in this town and go in.  Flashback to the past, this place was a dead end.  I figured what the heck, it doesn’t take too long to wash clothes, and so I sat there and got it done.  I brought my clothes home to dry, and then realized the dryer wasn’t hooked up or something.  I didn’t spend too much time with it as I was annoyed.  I hauled all my clothes back out to my car, and drove the fifteen minutes into town to find a laundry mat.  I go in, look around, and I notice none of the washers or dryers have a place to put quarters, so after staring around confused for about a minute, I go ask an employee for help.  Apparently, they use “debit keys now,” and I still don’t fully understand, but nonetheless, I got my clothes dried.  I drive back to my town because I also wanted to wash my car.  I see people at the carwash, just going to town cleaning their vehicles.  The one I pull into though, come to find out, has next to no water pressure, and the actual “soap” option doesn’t work.  After spending about seven dollars on that bogus excursion, I angrily drove fifteen minutes again to go wash my car in the other town.  Hallelujah – success!

Saturday night was interesting because my roommate and her fiancé were out for most of the day, and I really felt as though I needed to get out of the house.  I decided that I would grow up and go find somewhere to eat, by myself.  As I psyched myself up for this, as it was easy enough for me to do back “home,” but I find much more difficult here, and got ready.  I decided I would go to Buffalo Wild Wings as that was somewhere I used to eat by myself a lot back in the day.  I drove by, passing it without realizing it, GPS’ed where I was going, and after about a dozen of U-turns later, I found it.  Holy crap was that place crowded.  You literally had to walk about half a mile to get into that place.  I thought that maybe I should look elsewhere so I drove down to this other place I saw during the daytime that I was curious about (after several more U-turns of course), and it was just as crowded, if not more.  I have never seen restaurants so packed in my entire life.  Keep in mind, marines and girls are milling about everywhere, and there doesn’t look like there would be a place to stand, let alone sit down and eat.  After driving around for probably another thirty minutes, confused, lost, terrified, starving, I thought, “Eff this! I wanted B-dubs, and that’s where I’m freaking going!”  I would later come to realize that the football games were also playing, which was partially to blame for the crowds.  I finally find a place to park and walk into Buffalo Wild Wings, head held high, purse slung over my shoulder, and bee-lined toward the bar since that’s where “single people” tend to eat - I also find it far less awkward.  I ate my dinner and drank my beer like a champ, and then I left and went home.  I won the battle that night as far as I was concerned.

Sunday I spent being pretty lazy for the most part, and nothing really exciting happened from the couch I parked myself on once I got the internet working.  So this brings me to today.  I realized I needed to get things together today and go run some errands.  I have a bank just a quarter of the mile down the street from me, and I needed to go open a checking account.  In my past experience, this takes ten minutes tops, but ohh lawd no!  I spent an hour there today, and it was like a social hour.  I met just about everyone at the bank, a local man who said he’d pray for me when he found out what I was teaching, and got all kinds of advice from the lady opening the checking account for me.  It was kind of nice getting to talk to people from my little town, and feel like I was “getting to know” people.   After this I decided to go change my mailing address, so I drove to the post office, and while I was in line, I saw a paper that talked about doing it online, and this seemed like an easier option so I grabbed it and walked out the door.  After going online to do this, I find out you have to be charged one dollar via debit/credit card to “prove identity.”  Obviously since I JUST opened a new checking account, I don’t have one, so frustrated, I gave up on that until tomorrow.  I then made my way to the DMV to find out about how to get a NC driver’s license.  The lady basically tells me everything and then tells me to get in line to take the test.  I thought, “How hard can this be?  I’ve been driving for 8 years.”  I opened up the rules of the road book and skimmed through it with my best reading skills I’ve come to learn.  I giggle at the passage that says, “Don’t be a jackrabbit.”  This seemed so crazy, backwoods, call it what you want, but just remember this when I go to make a point here in a minute.  So I go in, take care of everything, get registered to vote, they change my address, I take my vision test, and then they put me on a computer to take the actual driving test.  I FAILED!!  Yes that’s right, I failed.  Missing six or more was failing, and I of course missed six.  This is what I get for not studying the “points” you get for providing alcohol to minors, and other various offenses – things that are definitely different in Illinois.  I kind of thought it was funny that I failed after laughing smugly about the whole “jackrabbit rule.”  Whatever.  After this I headed to the mall to pick up a few things that I needed, one being an item from the Clinique counter.  I began talking to the sales associate there, and I told her how I used to work for Clinique.  Come to find out, she too was from Illinois, and worked for the same department store that I worked for, only several hours north.  In talking to her, I may have also lined myself up with a part-time job back at the Clinique counter, so I was pretty excited about this.  And this, my friends, takes me to where I’m at now.  Writing this.  I’m sure I will have a lot more to say later, but I figured writing this all out one time was a lot easier than telling my stories over and over again.  I’m sure before too long, I’ll also be able to look back and laugh at the things that I’ve gone through since I’ve gotten down here!