Year Two

I am officially a second year teacher! I can not explain how awesome it is to be returning to a job I have already been practicing for a year. 

I am teaching the same grades again, 7,8, and 9. Two classes of 7, two classes of 8, and a class of 9. Teaching three consecutive year groups has its perks including day 1 I already knew about half my students! I am back in the same classroom (pictured above) and have fully embraced classroom design. Our theme this year is “children of the light” and so each of my students decorated a light bulb with their name and this week I finally found a spare hour to put them all up. 

While I am a big fan of year two teaching so far, I am also taking on addition responsibilities. I have two extra classes this year and one is a small class of 5 students who just need a little extra help with English in grade 8. It is a bit like an advanced ELL class where we just give them some extra time and attention in grade 8. I am pleased to be splitting this class with my mentor teacher, meaning she gets them for 4 periods a week and I get them for 4 periods a week: twice the amount the regular English classes meet. 

All together that means I teach six different classes and I have over 100 students. Some days with meetings I get little to no prep time between 7 am and 3 pm. The other teachers in my pod have similar loads and we often don’t start going home until at least 5 each night. And I am usually in my classroom by 6 a.m. each morning. I am not complaining; I am doing the job I love. 

And I do love it. I love the crazy things my 7th grade boys say to me. I love that my 8th graders, when asked to depict points of view with images, chose examples from the video game Minecraft (they are so creative!). I love when my 9th graders write honesty in their journals about their feelings and what they are learning. I love teaching students about the proper use of the semicolon (even when they roll their eyes when I stress that this is my favorite punctuation mark). I love seeing them borrow books from my classroom on Friday and return them Monday fully read. I love spending hours extra after school ends to develop a lesson plan that I know they will get excited about. I love collaborating with other teachers to develop a format chart that is now in every grade 7 and 8 English and Humanities classroom. 

They were right: teaching is the hardest job you will ever love. 

And oh do I love it. 

-Rachael

Indonesian words:

Permisi: excuse me

Berapa banyak ini: How much is this?

Nomor ponsel: phone number