From the Other Side of the Desk

They told me the first year was "the worst," that there would be hard days. I knew that, what I didn't know is that there would be more hard days than good days. They told me that I would work long hours and stay after school a lot. What I didn't know is that I would be living, eating, and breathing my very job.  They told me that I might have difficult parents to work with. What I didn't know is how horrible I would feel when they accused me of their child's failure in my class. I had no idea they would pick apart my grading scales, classroom procedures, and assignments. They told me I should differentiate my instruction to meet the needs of my students. What they didn't tell me is that I would have brilliant eighth graders who can teach themselves out of the book and juniors who can't do basic arithmetic in the same class. They told me I would make mistakes and that was okay. What I didn't know is that those mistakes would happen every single day, every single class  period. They told me I was supposed to teach to the state standards. What I didn't know is that students would come into my class without the prerequisite skills they needed making it impossible to teach all the standards for the course. They told me not every student would pass, that some students would be unmotivated. What I didn't know is that I would receive blank tests, that I would have a hard time separating my feelings of success from student performance. They told me a lot, but I didn't know even more.

From the other side of the desk--a little down