Required Blog: The first days of school... again.

The first week of school this year was so incredibly different from my first week last year that when i think about it, I still smile. Last year, I was so fretful about the idea of teaching and being a teacher as a whole. I did a relatively good job of masking a lot of that uneasiness, but it was nonetheless there. I had the same focus each day for at least the first couple of weeks: "Just get through the day." I would think this to myself as the bells rang in the halls (since my room didn't have a working bell), and if i was having a particularly bad class period, I'd think "Just get through the period."
This yea? Completely different. First huge difference: I had my syllabus ready for each of my students from day one (something that hadn't happened last year). It really helped me to set the tone for the class. But besides the syllabus, overall I was simply more confident. I didn't feel like a person that was told "You are a teacher" and was then trying to fill that role. I knew I was a teacher. I knew what I liked and didn't like in my classroom. I felt in control of my classrom immediately.
To help you get through your 1st year of teaching, you're told repeatedly that the first year is the worst and the scond is so much easier. I knew it would be true, but experiencing that for myself was something different altogether.