Whitney Young Elementary Part 2

The first day of school for us is tomorrow.  I have to tell you that this is the day that has made me the most anxious in the past.  All the things that are running around in my head get confused because I feel like the summer break should continue, but the calendar tells me that just isn't true.  It is the afternoon before the first day of the last year.  Don't really feel anything.  Wonder what that means?

Anyway, what I really want to do with the blog today is relate what it was like for me on the first day of teaching.  A quick recap first - I graduated with a degree in health, physical education,  and English.  My destination was to be a high school teacher.  The job that I got was elementary physical education.

I went through all of the training that FWCS provided at the time, even though I had to work it around coaching football.  I found out about benefits, "you mean I get more than money?"  I found out about moonlighting, "Teachers shouldn't work as bartenders with their free time?"  They told us how we would have to go to monthly meetings with experts in our area to help us with our teaching.  I was actually more relieved with that because I was pretty sure that I had no clue what I was going to do with elementary students.

That last part was where the anxiety came the Sunday before my first day of teaching.  What do I do with elementary kids?  Around three in the morning, I decided that students are students, no matter the age.  Just apply what you learned in your methods class and student teaching with junior high students.  What could go wrong?

Kindergartners!  That is what can go wrong.  That first day I followed my plan.  Third graders came in, I successfully got them into squads, told them what I expected of them, got a little exercise in, and explained how they were to line up to leave.  I repeated that with fourth graders and second graders.  Lunch came and I was pretty cocky.  I had this!

Then the kindergartners came in.  First, they saw this huge room.  The gym must have seemed enormous because they became mesmerized by it.  It took a while, but I got them into squads.  I went through all the rules: get into your squad when you enter the gym, be quiet when I am talking and don't interrupt me, follow my directions when we begin activity, listen for the whistle when I need your attention, and so on.  I thought that I was successful because I moved them into their lines to head back to their classroom without a hitch.

There he was sitting on the floor in his squad position, crying.  I went to the boy and asked why he was crying.  With big brown eyes that he lifted to see mine he slowly attacked my heart, "I wet myself."

Then I got my first true lesson as a teacher with the response that he gave to this question, "Why didn't you ask to go to the bathroom?"

Here it comes - "You were talking, and you said not to interrupt you."

The next class was coming in.  I am not sure what they were thinking, but I am pretty sure that they thought I was pretty mean.  And, I found out who cleans that up.  Me.