I've Got My Big Girl Panties On, So I'll Just Deal With It

Last week I experienced several big moments in my newly-forming career in education. Tuesday night I met with my co-teacher and her husband at a sushi restaurant in downtown Milledgeville. We laughed and joked about funny quirks we had in common that had little to do with classrooms and school. We then continued our fun night at a coffee shop listening to my fiance and some others play guitar. A great time was had by all.

Wednesday morning came and I received a phone call from my principal, my boss. I was informed I was being moved to seventh grade language arts inclusion instead of the eighth grade classroom I had grown accustomed to earlier. I was a little heartbroken, but not defeated.

See, the way I look at it is I have a whole drawer in my filing cabinet dedicated to seventh grade language arts; it was the grade and subject area in which I did my student teaching. I can pull from a number of lessons and projects I have extensive experience with. I also fit well within the seventh grade family at my new school since I was there not too long ago as a student teacher. I know the principal, the staff, and most importantly the secretary; if you know the secretary, you can pretty much get anything you need because they are truly the ones who make the school run.

I'm trying to be positive and energetic about most things right now. My extensive experience with seventh grade, and this school in general, will allow me to participate in extra-curricular activities that are close to my heart, like Relay for Life and drama/theater, without overextending myself...hopefully.

I moved to Macon this past weekend, thus creating a 35 mile commute from my new home to work. This morning I listened to "Today's Middle Level Educator," a podcast put together by the National Middle School Association. One of my educator heroes, Ross Burkhardt, was the guest on an episode entitled "Building Positive Professional Relationships...and Dealing With Those Who Refused to Do So." It was a fitting subject seeing as how I'm going in to an environment where I once had a different identity and am trying to establish myself in a new light.

The best piece of advice I took away from the session was when Mr. Burkhardt said, "You cannot be what you cannot see." How can we expect the young adolescents in our lives to be respectful or to act in an appropriate way if it has never been modeled for them. It is no excuse. We are to model ways of acting for students. We are to model professional relationships to help them see how adults should handle troubling situations. We cannot expect them to absorb things through osmosis...they must be exposed to such things and be able to learn them for themselves.

I am known to the many students with which I've worked over the past few years as a goofball, if you can believe it. One of my favorite and best goofball activities is making up songs about the students or about particular events in and out of the classroom. I have a good morning song, a goodbye song, a pencil-sharpening song, a reading song, and on and on. My latest and greatest composition comes in the form of a song entitled "The Positivity Song." I sing it at the top of my lungs when I feel myself becoming impatient with students and with other camp counselors. Now, this doesn't mean I am modeling random singing for my students but it does mean that the best way to handle an annoying or irritating situation is to remain positive and take it on! This is something I have struggled with my whole life and will continue to work on, especially in my professional life.

Remember:

"It's the positivity song!

Positivity all day long!

positivity! POSItivity! POSITIVITY!!!!!!

It's the positivity song!

I make it up as I go along!

positivity! POSItivity! POSITIVITY!!!!!!

It's the positivity song!

It helps me get along!

positivity! POSItivity! POSITIVITY!!!!!!

You don't know me!

Do you ever look around at your life and wonder if you can truly handle what is in front of you?

Often times I find myself in this situation when in the classroom. I look around at all the young faces in front of me and wonder if I can really take on the task of educating them. It is a tremendous task. I am taking on so much beyond teaching. Just a few months ago, I wrote this as my status on Facebook:

“Today I taught language arts, made 150 copies, gave out five Band-Aids, consoled three girls while they cried, hand-sharpened 36 CRCT pencils (and got a nasty blister from it), danced with students at lunch AND on the baseball field, played soccer in the hallway, and hugged approximately 80 seventh graders. Just another day in the life of a middle school teacher.”

Teaching is a busy life.

But I like it that way.

Two weeks ago, when I had officially accepted my position, I came bouncing into camp the next morning and announced my new job status to my eagerly-awaiting camp children. Immediately I heard such comments as, "Eighth grade? Really, Ms. Georgia Michelle? They're going to eat you alive! You're way too nice for eighth grade! Are you serious?" Indeed, I was serious. I was very happy with my choice. Before I could open my mouth, one of my campers, who just happened to have been one of my in-classroom students during a teaching placement my junior year, blurted out, "She will be just fine. Don't worry 'bout her! Y'all know Ms. Michelle not Ms. Herring. MS. HERRING will deal with eighth grade just fine. She can handle it!"

As funny as this little anecdote is, it raises a very important point. I am a different kind of person at camp versus at school, and this young man was wise enough to recognize that.

A good teacher teaches in the classroom while a great teacher teaches AND learns. I often say I learn so much more from the students with which I interact than they will ever learn from me. They teach me patience and understanding. They teach me important new words that a teacher of young adolescents needs to know. They teach me new dances, like the Wobble and the Cat Daddee, so I can continue to keep my lessons rigorous AND relevant.

They teach me that I can love hundreds of people unconditionally and with all my heart, and I certainly plan on doing so for as long as possible!

I'm a big girl!

This week, I signed the next year of my life away. I have accepted a position as an eighth grade language arts inclusion teacher for the 2011-2012 school year.

I expected the contract signing to be more of a spectacle. I guess I thought I was signing a contract for the NBA, complete with a press conference and flashing cameras. I would be given a hat with the school logo on it and would be interviewed.

Nope.

The human resources director printed my contract off the computer, handed it to me and went about her business until I said I was finished reading and I had signed the bottom. No fireworks, no flashing cameras. No cameras at all, really.

It all happened so fast. My appointment with her was at 10 am, and I was back at camp by 11 am. That morning I even woke up, did my hair and makeup, and put on a dress and heels. My camp students were astounded. I told them I was "Ms. Herring" in that outfit, and later I would return back to "Ms. Georgia Michelle."

I teared up as I walked out of the Board of Education office. This is a dream ten years in the making; I have wanted to be a teacher since I was in middle school. I am not just accepting a job as an eighth grade teacher; I'm fulfilling a dream.

Young adolescents are among my favorite people on the planet. They never cease to amaze me. They are insightful, inspiring, frustrating, and exhausting.

I cannot wait to start my journey and let the young minds teach me!