Tuesday, February 06, 2007

When is it my turn?

Since June or July, a number of people have been giving me advice and told me what to expect from my first year as a teacher . "You'll think you suck," they said. "The paper work is ridiculous." "Classroom management is the most important thing." They also said that it would get better after Christmas break. Well, this is the fifth week of school, second semester, and I'm still waiting for things to improve.
This semester didn't start off where last semester ended. My students' behavior and attitudes got worse. My classroom management suffered from these changes (and a few others that I couldn't avoid). I expected my semester to get easier so much that when things got worse I was just very sad. My focus became getting through each individual class period (not even getting through a whole day, but through class periods).
I have so much work and grading to do it's crazy. This week has been slightly better, but it's only the beginning of the week. I guess I'm just waiting for my year to finally get a little bit easier. I want to start seeing more immediate proof that anything I did last semester had a point to it. I want things to be a lot more manageable. Hopefully that time is coming soon...