Stefanie's blog
Major: English with Secondary Education Certification

August 14, 2008

Dear Readers,

Based on the infrequency of last year's posts, you may have wondered if I (a) abandoned the blogosphere, (b) ceased being a teacher, or (c) remained buried underneath piles of my students' papers. If you chose (c), you're the closest to being correct, though, thankfully, the situation was never that dire.

If there's one thing I can say for certain about the first year of teaching, it's that a new teacher is never at a loss for tasks to complete, lessons to plan, and work to assess. The business of the school year, however, makes this summer's idle minutes all the more blissful. Those of you readers who are in education have probably already been teased by relatives and friends about the easiness of teaching, because you get the "summer off"! If you've talked to teachers (and I hope you have, they're your best source for research and professional advice!), you know that the "summers off" concept is not true.

Before the new school year begins and my new (and hopefully more frequent) blog posts resume, I thought I would use this post to talk about my first summer as a full-time teacher.

Summer, for me, arrived none to soon. Overall, my first year of teaching was a successful and enjoyable one. I found my niche on a staff of welcoming, experienced, and talented teachers; I had the privilege of teaching bright, funny, and memorable young people; and I enjoyed the challenge of creating and developing an exciting and useful curriculum. Nevertheless, the rigor of the school day, the demands and attitude of 100+ students (with almost as many cases of "senioritis"), and the hectic pace of grading and planning in tandem can take their toll. The whole exhausting, wonderful process left me even more in awe of those men and women who can manage great classrooms and fantastic families! After the graduation speakers I'd coached delivered their inspirational addresses and the seniors turned their tassels, I was ready to go home to catch up on lost sleep and beach reading. I was determined to use the summer as a chance to relax, refresh, reconstruct lessons, and recharge my batteries before the 08-09 school year.

I was surprised at how listless I felt during those first few days "off". After weeks of very filled days, empty ones felt odd; I kept looking for my "to do" lists, feeling lost when a sticky note wasn't tacked to my bathroom mirror, reminding me to copy handouts or grade a late essay the next morning.

Within a week, I had already returned to school! However, rest assured, readers, I wasn't suffering from some form of occupational separation anxiety. Rather, I had some unfinished business. I served as the 2007-08 yearbook adviser, and as we publish what is known as a "fall delivery" book, a yearbook delivered at the beginning of a new school year, the small but dedicated yearbook staff still had a lot of work to do!

I smiled when I walked into the school building. The halls had already begun to smell of cleaning solution, vacuums and floor buffers whirred behind partially locked doors, and the steam of a muggy June crept into open classroom windows and spilled out onto the neatly stacked desks and tables that crowded the hallways in thick, straight lines as though reporting for a tornado drill. The scene reminded me how I'd marveled schools "secret lives" as a child, wondering who waved the magic wand that repainted rooms and built new facilities when students weren't there to witness it all. The staff and I ate lots of bagels, proofed and reproofed pages, and have finally received copies of the beautiful book. I'm so proud of the staff!

Like many teachers, I devoted part of my summer to continuing my education. On the recommendation of another SNC grad, I enrolled in "Take Me With You" a course on Geo-Literacy sponsored by the Wisconsin Geographic Alliance (WIGA).

A note to social studies teachers: if you haven't checked out WIGA, you really should! The organization is an EXCELLENT resource for teachers of any subject, but can certainly assist social studies teachers with developing new and exciting geography-based curriculum. I could not have asked for a better course, group of instructors, or classmates. Together, we learned about blending literacy strategies with lessons on world geography. Along with my classmates, I was transported to Monsoon Asia, Africa, India, and China. The journey was thrilling and fascinating, enlightening and educational, and ended with a surprise visit from a true world-traveler, Mr. Brad Newsham, author of our "textbook", the travelogue, Take Me With You.

After traveling to Africa and Asia in the classroom, I had the opportunity to visit to Europe later in the month. As a way of celebrating the completion of my first year "in the real world," I returned to Lancaster, England, and Lancaster University, my home for six months during my undergraduate semester abroad. I look forward to sharing my favorite memories of the trip with my students in a few weeks during those inevitable "how I spent my summer vacation" conversations.

The rest of my summer has been spent reading new literature for future classes and reworking lessons for the year ahead. I made sure to have students complete exit surveys during finals week; their responses have been crucial to the construction of my new curriculum. I'd advise new teachers to have their students complete end-of-the-year surveys, too. Your students' honest critiques will be surprising, humbling, and very helpful.

Another recommendation for your summer reading list: Harry K. Wong's The First Days of School. I struggled with classroom management last year, and The First Days of School is the closest thing I¡¦ve seen (in my limited experience) to a classroom management "textbook". I've written my new syllabi with Wong's suggested rules in mind.

Between reading, traveling, studying, sleeping, and thinking about classroom activities, where does the time go? Though I spent nearly three months out of my classroom, my brain and my heart never really left. Today, I received my new class schedule and rosters, and the prospect of another school year truly feels real. Not so many years ago, the sight of fresh, shiny school supplies would fill me with excitement "who would be my classmates? Would my teachers like me? What would I learn? What would I write?" It's nice to know that, even though I sit on the opposite side of the desk, the feeling hasn't changed. Here's to 2008-09!