Confessions of a First Year Teacher

I have been at Mt. Diablo High School for one week and my experience thus far has been overwhelming, challenging, busy, exciting, and inspirational. In trying to describe this seemingly indescribable teaching experience, I am not sure where to start. My students, maybe? Some are wonderful, some are difficult, and all have been through more difficult life experiences than I will ever have to go through. Students at Mount will show you no respect if you do not first show them an equal amount of respect. My colleagues? Absolutely wonderful. The Modern Languages department is so supportive. I was also lucky enough to be introduced to an English teacher--Mrs. Sliwinski--who was a St. Mary's grad many years ago and has offered to help in any way that she can. My schedule? 7:00am-3:15pm I teach, three days a week I tutor at the CARES after-school program, two nights a week I am a student, and one night a week I have the privilage of teaching my adult education students. My life outside of teaching? Non-existant.

Last semester when I was still considering taking the position as a full-time teacher, I was "warned" by several experienced educators that this experience, although benificial in many ways, might be too much to handle. I took the position anyway, disregarding any disbelief, including my own, in my abilities as a teacher and a professional. Here is why: simply put, I love to teach. My master teacher from last semester perfectly describes how I feel about teaching: "I can truly say without hesitation that I cannot think of another career that would suit me as well as this one. It's fun, it's challenging, it's high-energy, it's meaningful, it's creative, it's rewarding, and did I mention fun? Although, I will say that this job can be terribly overwhelming, painfully tiring, horrendously frustrating, and excruciatingly difficult. The work is NEVER done--not after school, not at night, not on weekends, and not even during vacations. There is always more that we could do, that we could create, that we could think about or that we could improve upon. For people like me, not giving 200% feels like a copout. When we know that there is more that we could do, we feel like we should, and if we don't do it, we feel like slackers. That's part of the charm of teaching. "

I was also told that if I were to take the position at Mount, I needed to learn two things: 1) to ask for help, and 2) to not take my "work" home with me. This, however, is not me. Although I am learning to ask for help from others, I will always take my work home with me because I care too much not to. Since starting at Mt. Diablo last week, I have not thought about anything but my students and how I want to help them all. These kids are facing real problems every single day--absent or abusive parents, drugs, violence, teen pregnancy, hunger, poverty. Now, I know, realistically, that I will not be able to reach every single student, but I have to try everything I can to make sure my students succeed. If nothing more, I hope to show my students that their teachers care about and believe in them.

Mt. Diablo is an unforgiving place to teach, but it is a school for teachers who truely love to teach. I hope that my experience at Mount will be one of mutual inspiration--I want to inpire my students and I hope my students learn how to inspire others.

Stay tuned for more "confessions" of a first year teacher. Happy day!


Chao,
Kel


Quote of the entry: "En el 2009, si se puede."