Wednesday was a rough day in the classroom. Not that it was the worst day ever - far from it - but I spent a good 20 min or so fighting with a kindergarten student to put on his jacket to go out to recess. He was having no part of it. I wasn't about to let him go out without it on. He screamed, hit, and clawed at me. Neither of us won. We didn't go out to recess and he didn't wear his coat. Thankfully this isn't a daily event. It was, however, one of those events that made me think as I walked out the door for my lunch break "How do you expect to get a teaching job when you can't even get this simple task done."
After school I work with one of the groups that stay late for math support. These are all typical 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. There's around 40 of them and it's seriously hard for me to get all of these kids out of the cafeteria, down the hall, up the stairs, and to their classrooms quietly. Actually, it's never happened. No matter how many times I've had them practice lining up or how many times I've stopped them in the hall it is impossible for the front, middle, and back of the line to be quiet all at once. Usually it's just the group of students that I'm standing closest to that will listen. During these times that little voice screams instead me "You are not a good teacher because these kids don't listen or respect you."
I came home to find an email from a school district I had interviewed at. Usually the beginning of these emails are all the same. This one wasn't. This one said "We would like to hire you for our Special Education Extended School Year Program....". I'm sorry, what? I read it 4x. Did I just get a teaching job? After six years of being a substitute or an assistant I finally received an offer from a school district in Westchester. I should have felt elated. All I felt was overwhelmed.
The commute is a solid 40 minutes one way, the hours are from 7:30am-3pm, and my students will be lower functioning than the current classroom I'm in. In fact there will be 9 or 10 students in my class and I'll have 9 or 10 TA's ....one for each student. Throw in a speech therapist, a psychologist, an OT, and a behaviorist, and I'm working with more adults than kids. This job is completely out of my comfort zone. The job starts in July and already I want to have a panic attack.
I don't know how I'm going to get up everyday at 4:30 or 5am to get to work ontime.
I don't know what age group I'm working with or the exact nature of the students' disabilities.
I don't know what the staff will be like.
I'm not sure when the program ends or if it even starts at 7:30 (during the interview they mentioned the exact hours hadn't been established yet).
I don't know what the pay is.
Here's what I do know:
God provided this job for me because with His help I can do all things.
Every day will not go perfectly but that doesn't mean I'm not a good teacher.
The pay will be much better than what I am used to making during the summer.
I will not have to work two jobs this summer.
The experience will be the catalyst for my future.
During the days when I fail at my job I can rely on God's grace to get up another day and do it all again.
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