The instructors in Career Switchers warned us time and again...there would be no free time during the first year of teaching. In the one month since being hired at Virginia Beach Middle School, I have found no reason to argue that point. I spend 7 to 8 hours a day at school and usually another two hours or more of home time on school work. That's not including the school work I do between 4am and 6am. My body clock is still set to morning radio time...I doubt I'll be able to sleep past 4:30am anytime soon.
The biggest challenge so far, I think, is the need for making split-second decisions a hundred times a day. Can I let this kid go to the bathroom? Where is the makeup work for that kid? Do I have time to finish this lesson? Are they ready for a quiz tomorrow? What will be on the quiz?
And I've faced a flurry of challenges that most first-year teachers get more time to prepare for. In my first two weeks, I handled federal cards, a field trip, a tornado drill, a bomb
drill, a fire drill, an assembly and a standardized test.
But I am enjoying the transition from radio to teaching. I really am. I'm getting a better sense of what's working and what is not. Once, during a lesson that involved subatomic particles, I could just tell my students weren't getting it. Luckily, I had bookmarked the Youtube video of Venus Flytrap's atom lesson from an old episode of WKRP in Cincinnati. The kids had never heard of the show but really enjoyed the segment.
My co-workers often ask me if I miss radio. Maybe I would miss it, if I had time to miss it. Every waking moment, it seems, involves school.
