ahora vamos a contar

i've been doing some blog-browsing and it seems like a lot of first-year teachers have very different experiences from mine. so far, i've found one person who quit and another who was on the brink, both of whom were/are extremely stressed out and medicated. i'm definitely in my comfort zone aside from the changes and adaptations that one would expect from being in a new school environment. i'm relatively friendly with my co-workers and most everyone at least knows as the new 1st grade bilingual teacher if they don't know me by name. since my school doesn't have a lot of social activities, i don't feel particularly left out of anything, and my team always makes a point of sitting together at meetings and trainings.

i'm going to list what i consider to be my strengths and weaknesses as a new teacher... might be a good way to do some self-reflection every month for the remainder of this academic year.

Strengths

Strong and consistent discipline/behavior management

Lots of support & attention from my administration, curriculum specialists, and teammates

Good organization

Beginning integration of ESL into daily routines

Attempting to create better contacts and communication with K and 2nd grade bilingual teachers

Giving students basic skills in terms of writing and mathematical thinking that they weren't taught last semester

Weaknesses

No bilingual support aside from administration and one curriculum specialist

Overzealous and hyperparanoid parents drive me UP THE FUCKING WALL

Somewhat undecisive as to best way to target my students who at the most risk of being held back (I'm going to start daily guided reading and tutoring this week, we'll see how that goes)

Still need to work on becoming better aligned with the other 1st grade classes (both of which are monolingual... but no one has really said anything about my diverging so I don't know how important this is to anyone else)

Undecisive about best way to manage word study with so many needs in the classroom... I may work this into guided reading groups in the next week

Letting my kids use the bathroom all the time! We have restrictions during carpet time which dictate no water or bathroom privileges unless it's emergency, but these kids swear they have two or three emergencies per day, and since I've already had two children pee on themselves I'm hesitant to get hardcore about this.

Totally unrelated, I finally got my first paycheck today. Fuck you, government, for taking away 1/5 of my measly monthly earnings. FUCK YOUUUUU!!!