No Summer Break for me..

While many of my fellow cohort Fellows are enjoying their first summer vacation from a very intense first year of teaching (or first half-year for my mid-year cohorts), I decided to take a summer school teaching position. Why? Well, it was for both financial reasons and a need for classroom experience. At this point, I’m glad I did it, but I wish it was over. And I’m hoping it’s very different from when I have my own class.

It probably wouldn’t be so overwhelming and tiring if I wasn’t also taking two grad school classes from 2-7pm each night after school Mon-Thurs. It’s not even that the classes are a lot of work, but they are tiring and take up any down time I would otherwise have.

It grates on my nerves the lack of free time to relax and get my head together for September. I had really wanted to immerse myself in third grade curriculum and learn the Teachers College approach to Reading and Writing more deeply, but I just have not had the time. And the day after I’m done teaching, I’m going to Mexico for two weeks. The day after I come back will be just two days before I go set up my classroom. I really didn’t want my first time in a classroom to be as “By the seat of my pants” as being a push-in was, and I feel like I’m not in a position to change that.

So, here I am, feeling a bit out of control in terms of what I’m doing right now. Like I’m treading water in a current that’s pushing me both backwards and down.

Ah, yes, but I’m glad I got to see what being a classroom teacher is like before September….