Fire Drills

Congratulations! You have finished all your exams. You have written all the papers. You have invested hundreds of hours in practicum experiences in various classrooms across multiple grade levels. You have crafted a thousand lesson plans, citing standards, essential questions, differentiation, and evaluation. Your university has validated your ability to teach a child to read and numerate. Your state has issued you a professional certificate signifying that you met all the criteria required to get your own classroom full of learners. Your school district has offered you a contract for next year. You have impressed your principal enough to choose you to be on her team. Your head is full of the knowledge of how to develop literacy, diagnose deficits, integrate technology, differentiate instruction, evaluate learning, manage behavior and motivate learners. Your heart is full of love for children, teaching, learning, planning, creating, and organizing. Now you are ready to receive your own classroom full of learners and begin making the difference you were born and trained to do. This is your mountaintop moment. You worked hard to get here. Again, congratulations!

Every teacher in every classroom has been where you are right now. That feeling of being prepared and being chosen is a great one. Enjoy it. But right now, you don’t know what you don’t know. You don’t know where to get an extra student desk in the building, what’s really going on in Charlie’s home, why your colleague, Mrs. Brown, seems to resent you, or why Ellen’s mama is so angry. You don’t know everything you will need to get through the first day but being a lifelong learner, you recognize that you have what it takes to navigate the unexpected, find the answers and solve the problems.  Go ahead and expect the unexpected. You may or may not be assigned a mentor teacher who can address your questions. The mentor may or may not actively and earnestly check on you and offer assistance. After all, the mentor has her own classroom full of children to prepare for, committees to chair, baby teachers to mentor, a family at home depending on her, and another part time job. Don’t be afraid to ask her questions. When she checks in on you, don’t tell her that you are fine and then turn your lights off and cry silently in your classroom because you are overwhelmed. If you are a perfectionist, which many teachers are, the many unexpected things that happen in a day in a classroom full of children will create a familiar angst that will lead straight to overwhelm. Go ahead and plan to take a bubble bath, or rest while listening to music, or go for a run (if that’s your thing) when you get to that point. Personally, I recommend a Dairy Queen moo-latte for such occasions.

That first class will always be special to you. They call you the teacher but on that last day of the first year, you will look back and realize that you learned more than anyone in your class. Take a class photo every year and label it with every child’s name. Years from now, when you receive a graduation announcement or wedding invitation, you may have to look back to identify the one to whom you were so significant that they chose to include you in their life’s pivotal moments. Never think for a minute that you are not making a difference. You may not see it today or even this year, but you definitely will. Welcome to the profession that makes all other professions possible. We need you here.