One word that describes your feelings toward the first day of school...

We went around in a circle with my PD group (program director) and everyone shared. The majority used the word that they were subconsciously encouraged to use... excited. Not me. Sure, I'm excited about the first day, but the prompt was "The ONE word that describes your feelings towards the first day of school." Ladies and gentlemen, drum roll please............. terrified. I am completely and utterly terrified. Still, this is not to say I'm not excited, and I'm also very anxious to meet my kids (all 200 of them), but most of all I am terrified, of what lies ahead. However, I know, I cannot let them get the best of me. After all, they're just kids.

I think that my experience in summer school is what frightens me the most, but I learned so much from that experience, that I can only hope it will be better. The most terrifying part to me is the 6 groups of kids I'm going to have. Before I had one group of 24-27ish. They terrorized me. They were relentless in their pursuit of bringing misery to me, every single day. One group of kids. I have six now. Six classes of 28-32. The chances that all of my classes will want to terrorize me is slim to none, but everyone always has a "bad class." They might not even be that bad, but in comparison to all your other classes, they are the bad class. The one you tend to dread going to. Now, I'm hoping that my "bad class" is not my second period. Why you ask? Because their class team is the University of Illinois. I already favor these kids, and I don't even know their names. I first noticed the bias when I was making the drawings for my hornet bowl wall. Obviously I wanted them all to be perfect, but the big orange I had to be pristine. After I laminated them and was cutting them out, I chopped out MSU and Wisconsin, and was a lot more careful with the U of I. Everyone always says that first step is admitting you have a problem. So, I've recognized this issue, and must take action. However, I also don't want to go too far in the other direction and end up being way too hard on the Illini. We'll see, I'll have to keep everyone updated on my "bad class."

I will be the first one to admit that I did not read enough my entire life (my dad will be the second one to admit it, unless he beats me to it.) So, my vocabulary has always been lacking. One thing I have definitely noticed here, is my vocabulary rapidly expanding. I'm pretty sure it's mostly due to the fact that I am surrounded by such intellectual people who use big words in normal conversation. "The thought of that is daunting," was my go-to phrase all throughout institute. Sometimes I think it makes one sound pretentious. Like, look at me I know big words and when I'm talking to you about lesson planning I'm confusing the hell out of you because you can't keep up with the thesaurus built into my brain. Cool man, cool. Someone actually said to me, "I was up so late last night, those lesson plans are so laborious." Allright, it was hard work, and the use of that word was uneccessary. First of all, I don't even know if you used laborious in the sentence correctly. Second of all, I am so tired and my brain hurts, please do not make me strain to figure out what you are talking about. You are being so ostentatious. The word ostentatious and I have a love/hate relationship. I love to hate it. It is such an awesome word but whenever someone uses it, they sound ostentatious. One could make a serious argument for the idea that it may be an onomatopoeia. Now, I'm beginning to piss myself off. That or I'm just getting a bit smarter, I'm not sure, either way it's weird.

Sorry for the tangent...

The thought of my first day of school scares the bejesus out of me. I hear horrifying stories that actually petrify me. Some even scare me witless. But, the one that paralyzed me, was the teacher who told me her students drugged her. (sorry I just had to use the synonyms to emphasize just how terrified I am).

They drugged her. What child could have so much distaste is his/her mouth to drug a teacher? The consequences alone should have deterred them from this action. Jail time kid, jail time. The sad fact is, that no one was ever punished. A child got away with drugging their teacher. Now, we can be thankful that it wasn't a poison, or something she was allergic to. It was just a hallucinogen. Ha. When in my life have I ever had the opportunity to say, eh, it was just a hallucinogen? Never.

This has come to my attention many a time, since I have been in Houston. The "...when in my life..." It's all new, I have seen and heard things that I was unaware actually occurred in this world. I have witnessed the wrath of a child scorned. But, this child has been scorned their entire life. They have been warned, they have been "disciplined," they have been "retained," and some even arrested. But year after year, they are thrown back into the systems. Either the public school system, the corrections education program, or jail. I don't know which of these three is worse. These kids don't believe in themselves. How are they supposed to if no one else believes in them either though? They think they're stupid, they think they're bad kids, when really they are so smart, and more than capable of behaving. But, if their teachers, year after year, tell them they're not smart, and that they're not capable of behaving, then why would they try to prove them otherwise? I hope, with all my heart, that I can change this mentality with at least the 200 kids I have in my classes. If I can do that, and all my TFA friends can do that too, we can potentially change the lives of 60,000 kids. In Houston. I know that this is an enormous stretch to say 60,000, especially because some of these kids will have multiple TFA 10s, and we won't be able to change the lives of all of our students, but I am very tired, my math consisted of 200x300, and I'm optimistic.

So, after tomorrow, my terrified vision of tomorrow will be over. Whether or not it comes true is up in the air, but at the end of the day, I'm still helping these kids, one step at a time.

Wish me luck, I need it...

Ms. S