Dear First Years,

WELCOME!!

I am excited to meet you all and to get to know you all. I hope you are ready for the craziest, most insane, most exhausting two years of your life. Who am I kidding, there is no way to prepare for this.

I was asked to give some advice to the new class but I am sitting here and I am not really sure what to say. I mean I only completed my FIRST year. I am no expert. I mean I am changing most of the things I did in my classroom this year. But I can give you some words of advice on surviving.

1. DO WHAT YOU NEED TO DO TO STAY SANE. If this is exercising or talking on the phone to family every night or traveling on weekends, do it!! This kind of falls hand in hand with finding something to do such as a hobby. Its going to inevitably happen though. You are going to be consumed by teaching at some point this year. You are going to eat, breath, and sleep school. But it wont last. You will either see the light or have a mental breakdown. When that occurs, find a hobby. My hobby? Travelling… Thanks to my neighbor. It was sometime in the fall when the one and only Charles Preacher said “we always need a trip to look forward to.” From that day one, there has always been something, whether big or small, that I have to look forward to. To me, spending money to get out of the delta is 100% worth it.
2. SLEEP. As I was cleaning out my classroom I found some goals that I had my homeroom write back in August when we were holding classes. I wrote my goals for the year down too. On my middle finger I wrote “Get at least 7 hours of sleep a night” I am proud to say that 98% of the time, I stuck to that goal. I coached soccer so sometimes it just wasn’t possible. I never stayed up late doing school stuff. You just have to realize that its not that serious. Things will get done when they get done. Didn’t finish all the grading you wanted? That’s fine, do it on your planning block. Didn’t call all the parents you wanted? That’s fine, finish it tomorrow. If you don’t sleep, I promise you that the kids are going to sound ten times louder than the actually are the next day.
3. Teaching is one big science experiment in which every day is a new day and you can change things however you want. If something is not going the way you envisioned, change it. As long as you are on board 100% and you are enthusiastic about it, the kids will eventually accept the change as well. Change the look of your classroom. Change the consequences. Change the way you teach. Doesn’t matter. Just realize that you are the scientist and the classroom is your lab. Don’t go overboard, but don’t be afraid to change things.
4. Serenity Prayer…this has been my motto all year. Once I let go and realized that I can’t control everything, my emotional well being vastly improved. It doesn’t matter the quality of your school, you just cannot control everything. I told myself and eventually I started telling my students, I don’t care what happens outside my classroom, but in here, I run things. And still you can’t control whether or not a student wants to learn in the classroom. As long as your doing everything you can do and as long as you can go home at night and say “I tried” then you are doing your job. I turned to laughter. Crying was too emotionally draining. Find a friend and just laugh about the ridiculousness. Don’t complain about. Just laugh. Realize that this whole experience is sort of what Alice felt like falling down the rabbit whole. Reason goes out the window so stop trying to make sense of it all.

And that’s it. I have no other wise words to depart on you. I am here for you though, especially if you want a good laugh…remember that time my students stuck neon green gum to my chair and I sat on it?!?!? Yeah that was funny…