A Walk in My Shoes: First Nine Months [Becky Brady] Beginning my student teaching semester, I had a million questions for my cooperating teacher. And one of the things I remember really being intrigued by when she would talk about home visits or she would say something about this student and I would be like, "How do you know that?" And she'd be like, "Oh, during home visits." So I always knew that this school did that but I didn't realize it's only where that does that. And I think it's great. Last night, I paired up with another kindergarten teacher and I had a list of my students that were color coded with the map of where they live on post and she had her map and we drove from house to house with a little bag of goodies. They don't know that they have been given me as a teacher, so I just have to say, "I'm your kindergarten teacher, it's really great to meet you." But it really gives you a good look into the child's life if you can just see a peek through their front door. [Renee Caraballo] I have currently just finished a lot of my to-do list and my to-do list is still a mountain. It's really frustrating because I feel like I've done so much but I still have a lot left to do. And I know that getting it done before my kids arrive for back-to-school night is going to be completely insane. [Bridget Winter] I'm excited to get the class list, to put name tags on the desks, as minimal as that sounds. There's a few finishing touches that I want to do in my room and then, next week, I'm really going to try and hit it hard with lesson plans going and having my first three days nailed down as well as, you know, just different fun activities, so really organizing that and getting it all concrete. [Caleb Roth] Right now, we are all handling open house. We have tons of forms that all these parents have to sign, it's been crazy. We got flooded with children. But it was great. And I'm really excited now getting to meet a lot of my students, It's awesome to see who I'm going to be teaching for the next year. So all my students are here, they're ready, I just need to know if I am. I mean look at this room. Does this room look like the room of somebody who's ready? Because, no, it does not. Tonight was open house and I don't think any amount of preparation could've I prepared me for this evening. I thought I was really well-prepared and I thought was really organized and then I had 20 families come in all at once and bombard me. And it was awesome but it was also really terrifying at the same time. I also didn't realize how many parents kept their children off ADD and ADHD medicine over the summer, so I had a lot of rambunctious friends running around my classroom tonight. But that is okay because we will talk about rules and procedures and make sure that everything will, hopefully, go a little bit smoother on the first day. Well, it's the first day of school. It's about 6:35 and I am ready to take on some kids. Here we go. Here's my classroom, all ready to go with the agenda. Students brought their book bags in on Sunday. I'm feeling quite nervous. I'm ready to go and I'm ready to be a teacher. Here we go. [Together] Ready, jump. And now we're done. - So today was the first day of school and I am exhausted. We just really talked a lot about rules and procedures. But I tried to keep it light and fun and we did some fun team-building things. We came up with our own classroom handshake and that was really entertaining to watch. Well, day one is complete. As a first-year teacher, it went a lot better than I expected. We did a lot of group activities with other sixth-grade classes, so that was nice. I love my students and cannot express how much going over rules and procedures it's going to take for these kids. Definitely have some strong readers in the group, lots of students that want to be here but also some of those ornery boys that I'm going to have to figure out what to do with them. But I look forward to the challenge and I'm going to go get some sleep. It's almost 9:00 and I am needing some energy for tomorrow. So, see you then. Everly, we're having fun? Today was really hard. My first day of teaching, ever. And it's kindergarten, so it's not only my first time but it's their first time ever coming to school. Sitting in your chair, that's foreign. Raising your hand, not a clue what that is. Not talking all the time. You can't just get up and leave. Who knew? And the joke of the morning was, if your first day kindergarten, you don't lose anybody and nobody dies, you have a good day. And I almost freaking lost one. So I sent a little girl home on the bus that shouldn't have been on a bus. The bus was taking her to her home address that we have here on file. She doesn't live at the house that we have the address for. Her mom now lives with friends and she's not supposed to ever go back to the house she lives at. And I sent her to that house because I put her on the bus. We found her, things are fine. But things like that, that made the day worse than I felt like it already was because I thought I lost a student. It is what it is, I guess. As I've sat here thinking like, "What could I have done better?" I realized that there is no way I could have been prepared for what today was. Yeah, today was hard My name is Becky Brady and I'm from Wichita, Kansas. I have two parents, Pat and Terry, and then I have an older sister, Sarah, and then a younger brother, Steven. My dad runs our family business, Brady Nursery. Since my dad was always at work, we would just go to work with him and we would occupy our time in the fields or on four-wheelers or get a golf cart. But it was us, tearing around in it, most of the time. It's just been fun growing up, having this family business that I always had a job at and my whole family was pretty much always here. [Catherine Brady] Becky has always been a real smiley child even when she was a little baby because she was always, you know, happy and friendly to everybody, it seemed like. In high school, part of the day, one semester, I went to fourth and fifth grade combined classroom where I was just a teacher aide and that's kind of where I really got into it and really decided that I like this and I'm not horrible at it. [Rosemary Duling] From the minute Becky came in my classroom, she was a natural. I felt like I'd known her her whole life, even though I'd just met her because she's just that personality, that she interacted well with adults and the students. [Patrick Brady] I think that the real good teachers, the ones that I've had, the ones that Terry's had, the ones that, you know, Becky's had, they're doing it because they have a passion to do it. [Terry Brady] Becky could do anything she set her mind to do. I mean she could be a doctor, she could be a lawyer, she could be an architect. She is so talented and so bright and so curious about everything. She could be anything she wanted to be. - Not a hot dog, my hot dog. - Well, I thought it was wonderful. Knowing Becky, I'm sure she's going to do well because she's one of those people that's kind of full of joy. And when people meet her, I think they feel that. Good afternoon. I survived my second day of teaching today. I always feel like these days can be a little bit boring and you got to spice it up for the kids because you can just see the deadness in their eyes. To liven things up a bit, I decided I was going to put a little bit of a Language Arts spin on it but we were going to have a snowball fight. Their first instructions were to finish the exposition and then, after that, crumple up their paper. They loved it. It was so much fun, it just gets me really excited for this year. I really think that these students are going to work hard for me and I think, that just maybe, I might be able to make an impression on them. Today went a lot better than yesterday did, it wasn't as rough, it wasn't as bumpy. I did get a little bit more confidence, definitely more of a sore throat but that's just from talking all the time. And I definitely had a proud teacher moment today when a child challenged the rest of the class to be a different fifth grade class because they had previously been bullied and called babies and teased for being the younger kids. And she completely challenged the class to make sure that that was a difference and that was going to be a change instead of teasing them to make sure that you be the role models that they need. I just had a lot of really awesome humbling moments today and I'm incredibly blessed that these kids are mine for the first year and I couldn't have asked for a better group of kids to work with. Hi there. So it is Sunday night right now. I have been up here working at school for just a little bit this evening and kind of just needed to get ready for the week coming up. I've had a lot of time to think over the weekend and I think the first day of school was so rough that I didn't want to come back on Friday. It was still a hard day, I'm still reminding them that we can't just go home whenever we want, and if you have to say something, you have to raise your hand and things that we don't think about what kindergarteners don't know if they've never been to school before. So I just realized it's going to be a learning process for both of us and I can't get frustrated, at the end of the day, if it didn't go how I wanted it to. Things are good, they're going to get better every single day and they already have. So I'm excited for the rest of the week. They are a handful, 27 bodies in my homeroom is a lot, a lot of hormones, a lot of body odor but a lot of great personalities that I think are going to make it great for the school year. I know this is where I'm supposed to be and I'm enjoying it and I'm tired and I'm ready for tomorrow. Early on in college, I thought maybe I should look at more diverse public schools, maybe I should look at lower socioeconomic schools. It wasn't until I started applying that I felt more called to teach in a Catholic school. I've encountered a lot of stereotypes about what the Catholic school system is like. They think the kids are going to behave so much better than public school and that is definitely not true either. Yes, you know, we have high expectations of our students but a child is a child, no matter where they go to school. [Mary Carter] We have some of the same struggles whether it's students and their needs, families and their needs, teachers and their needs. You know, we work hard to serve all students and we serve all families. But what makes us different is how we infuse Catholic values into it, the values that we think are so important for our students to learn. Another stereotype, I would say, is how awful the uniforms are. But I think it's great, I'm a firm believer of uniforms and that also resonates back to we're all one. Because we're family and family recognizes and understands but still embraces the challenges that they have. - We come from a very, very tight-knit family. My brother and I were very close just because we both had interest in basketball and sports. And then my sister, she's two years older than me, so we would do a lot of things together. My mom is actually a teacher. She taught high school math out in Western Kansas and then in Buhler. My dad is a very hard-working man and even when he would come home from a long day at work, he would ask us about our day. They really showed that they cared about each one of us. Whenever we were growing up, I'd always play school in my classroom. [Marylou Winter] He would go up to her bedroom and she would be teaching her pretend people and writing on the windows and I would have to knock on the door then she would do, "Just a moment, please." I said, "Well, maybe you could send your children to recess and you could come back." "Just a moment, please." I had a great band teacher in high school who'd not only taught us how to be better musicians but also better people. He would always give 110% and never settle for mediocrity. [Eric Stambaugh] The first time I met Bridget was as an eighth grader at Prairie Hills Middle School. She always stuck out because of her work ethic, she was always surrounded by people because of that work ethic. And not only that, is that she's a huge people person. Whatever she thought that she lacked, she worked twice as hard than most kids. I always knew that she was going to go to greater things. I think the greatest compliment that I could ever give to Bridget is that I would trust her with my own children. - He was a great role model and I really took I think a lot of his values of seeing, you know, how much work ethic pays off in life, how much dedication and passion to the profession he had and demonstrated that teachers play a significant role in every student's life. Today we are doing an awesome lesson where we're looking at culture quilts. I gave them a piece of paper and on that, they are going to put down pictures, quotes, words, drawings, anything that really represents their culture. And it's really awesome to see what some of the students have already come up with, even though they've only had about 20 minutes to work on it before encores. So if you look, you can see they've already started putting flags of their nationalities from where they were born. Got tons of stuff, everybody's got markers left out, got pictures of families being drawn. Here, we've got favorite foods. Somebody way in the back who they love their music, so they've got their phone. It's just really awesome to see all of the different types of families and backgrounds and interests that these students have. So I really wanted to touch on that and help them grow and learn to understand each other. I love high-fiving the students every day they come in the door and every day that they leave for school. I think it's a great way to just be positive and be that positive face for them in the morning. Definitely chaotic once the bell rings, that's one thing I'm trying to learn. But like I said, being the positive reinforcement, that positive model for them has been crucial for me and super important as well as making sure that they know my expectations and procedures. I gave a quiz today on my procedures and I think some of them were terrified. I made sure to tell them that it's not going to be for a grade and just to do their best. But it's also a great way to help me understand what I need to continue going over with them and what they don't understand. The week has been going by super fast and I can't believe tomorrow's already Thursday. And then, before I know it, it's going to be the weekend and planning again for the next week. But I'm enjoying it, it's exhausting but it's definitely a rewarding job. And I know this is where I'm supposed to be. So that's all for tonight from this first-year teacher. One of the things I struggle with a bit is classroom management and learning how I'm going to be an enforcer and not just a friend. That's why I have my desks broken into groups already, so I kind of have them separated a bit. I have like a few classroom management techniques set in stone. I just need to learn how to balance it to where I'm not just letting them be my friend and I can take that next step. I am a little nervous about it but I think it will, overall, be okay this year. Let me grab a calendar, okay? It's hard to manage a class of 20 kids that have such strong personalities. I was a talker in school and I have 20 of me, it's like payback. And that's what I tell parents too, you know, I completely understand, no matter who they put me next to, I was that kid that was going to have the conversation with 20 other friends. And so, I think that, you know, just having that realness with the parents has helped me a lot. My goal is to simplify my directions and my explanations to add clarity to everything. As a teacher, I would hope that in a month, I have them ready to be able to move from their tables to the carpet, to where I just maybe have to say one word or sing one small song and have them be able to do their job and move around our classroom easily without having to go back to their seats and practice because they don't remember where they should go. I'm loving my students but they need practice on routines, they need more practice with classroom management. But keep in mind, these are sixth graders, so social is the number one right now. [Mary Wright] Most new teachers, one of the biggest things they struggle with is their first year's classroom management. If the management is a struggle for you then it makes it really hard for you to get where you need to be with the content. And so, you can tell when you're in a classroom how well the teacher is able to manage their classroom. [David Warner] New teachers are no different than first-year students in the classroom, they're trying to learn what's expected of me. And classroom management truly is one of the first things you have to get a hold of and you have to manage and, for some teachers, it's a hard concept. The things that I look for, do they have good transitions? Are kids engaged in the learning? Could they do something a little bit different to get more kids engaged? - [Deb Gustafson] We have a tremendous amount of procedures in place for how we approach our instruction and our classroom management. So we put our new teachers through a pretty grueling professional development process with just new teachers and those things are in place to ensure that the playing field is level. And then by second year, they've figured out all the things they'd want to do better. So, you see tremendous growth in a new teacher over the first year. My brother and sister went to the Chapman School District and so I grew up going to volleyball games and band performances and soccer games and they're just so based around the children. And one thing that really shocked me was how willing our PTO was to help out this school. We don't have a laminator right now and so PTO is actually buying a new laminator for us and gave each classroom teacher funds to buy things for their classroom. That was one thing that really shocked me because I never realized how much the community actually cares. The demographics of Chapman, most of it is rural country and so 4-H has a very big presence here. They just had the 4-H Fair last week, it's just big in the community as well as the military. During my interview, I was told that a lot of military have chosen to retire here and so we have a lot of military kids. - I think because of the military aspect, that's a unique challenge. How do you deal with kids that may be here two months and then gone again? And how do you invest your emotional self in those kids? You know, it's one thing to have a kid in and out, but do you make a connection with that child? And so, that's a huge one for first-year teachers trying to relate to those kids that are here and gone again. I moved to Topeka when I was about four or five, I started kindergarten. [Shawn Marshbanks] She was always wanting to help others before herself. You could see it at a very young age that she was a helper. I think that growing up, that kind of lifestyle has made her the person that she is today. [Tonya McConnell] It's tough being a single parent, raising children on your own and trying to make sure that they succeed in life. And I haven't given her everything but I've given what I can with the means that I had. And she's great. [Niko Caraballo] Mom worked a lot, so usually Renee took care of me. I would always play teacher with my brother and, you know, make him sit there over the summer with my workbooks that were two grades above him. I was like, "You have to learn these skills." She kind of helped me see that I wanted to be a teacher. In my family, I am the first one to attend a major four-year university. My mom only had like a year or so of college but she never...things happen. And I'm not sure about my dad, I really didn't grow up with him and so it was a goal for myself. The moment that I figured out I wanted to be a teacher, I was actually at a high school band competition and I was in the parking lot. And my mom was like, "You know, we're at K-State. What are you thinking you're going to do? Are you going to come here?" And I was like, "You know, mom, I think I really want to teach music." And she was like, "All right, let's make that happen." But then, as time went on, I realized, you know, I think music's more of a passion and I don't think I could do it every day of my life. And so, I was like... I had the most fun in elementary and I really... I felt like I found my niche. As a mom, you want to see your children succeed and have a better life than what you've had. And so, that's what I want for her and, you know, doesn't have to struggle like I did. There's definitely a period of days within the week that I'm not as prepared or I realize, "Oh crud, I should have done that last night." But for the most part, I know what's going on, I know where I want these students to be at. During this summer, I kind of made an outline of where I wanted the students to be at for each quarter and that's been a great pacing guide to follow. But there's always something that comes up that I'm not really sure how to handle or I wish I would have been more on top of. There's a lot of different factors that go into teaching other than just preparing a lesson plan, I would say that's probably 5% of it. Something that I hope I will learn over the first year of teaching is really just gaining confidence in my teaching. That's something that I really hope to grow and foster and is just, you know, telling myself, "I can teach all these math skills and I can, you know, help these kids succeed, not only on their tests but in life as well." Right now, you feel like sometimes you're like, "Oh my god, what am I doing up here? I don't know what I'm doing." And you like think like, "What's in my lesson plan?" I'm getting better at like shifting things around and not following a strict schedule but then making sure I still get everything done. I feel more in control. It feels like just yesterday I was starting but then, at the same time, I feel like I've been doing this now for like a year. Now that I've gotten in that groove, I'm like, "So this is what I can expect." And actually that's kind of just become my new challenge. "I've made it this far. Now how do I keep fighting these battles?" - Helping new teachers is all about making sure they succeed. And our staff takes that incredibly personal. It's our responsibility to make sure they're successful. If a new teacher is not successful in our building, it's not their failure, it's our failure to find what type of support they needed in order to be successful. They've been very helpful and when they asked me to come to them, I knew that they were just ready to help and so I had a chance to explain the situation of I don't only have one or two kids that need a lot of help, I have a handful. And they were eager to listen and eager to help. We have a lot of unofficial support systems in place for our new teachers. We make it look like it's just random where it's actually pretty strategic who's going in, depending upon what type of modeling that new teacher needs because every new teacher is different, all of their needs are different. So for some of them, I need to have somebody going in their room for support that's going to temper them, calm them down, get their anxiety down. For some of them, I need firmness. While everything I think looks to the student teacher to be pretty randomly selected, from the office perspective, it's all pretty strategic. This quarter has flown by, there have been ups, there have been downs. There have been parent meetings that have gone really well, there have been parent meetings that I have left in tears on my way home and I'm just like, "I don't know what I'm supposed to do as a teacher, I don't feel qualified for this job." Definitely have felt that. So Monday comes around. I planned Sunday, I've got my stuff ready for my students to experience what I had planned. And it just didn't go well. It just didn't go well in every sense of the way. My students were clearly tired, everybody was just exhausted. And you could tell when it came to the lesson because the students did not grasp from it what I hoped they would. I left that day feeling very, very disheartened. The self-doubt is something that is...it just creeps in. Even when you know you're doing the right thing or in your heart you're doing the right thing. And I think that's why you really need to surround yourself with the positive people that can help bring you up, can help carry you through some of those hard times and just keep reaffirming that this is really what you need to do. Teaching from textbooks, teaching on paper seems way easier than it is in practice because, you know, when you look at like, "Here's the best way to do this lesson," you don't think necessarily of the personalities that can throw that lesson off. And having the ability to adapt and think on your feet is something that you have to learn. You know, just how you pick yourself up and carry on, that grip, that perseverance, man, it makes all the difference. You know, God does not call the qualified, he qualifies the called. And I feel called to teach and I know He will give me those skills that I need to teach effectively. It will happen, just be prepared for it. I'm a new teacher, I'm going to fail. But I have the rest of the year to show that that's not me, that's just a mistake and that was just one lesson. [Valerie Rock] Your first year is definitely a lot more stressful just because you're trying to figure out your routine, you're trying to figure out your schedule, you're trying to figure out this whole new curriculum. [Allison Schoen] I think having a mentor your first-year teaching is so important because you need that outlet, that they can feel comfortable talking to somebody to get advice, somebody to laugh with, cry with. This is my first-year mentoring, so that's been fun too. It's an experience as well where there's things that I forget that I'm like, "Oh, I probably need to let Renee know about this, she probably has no clue about this." So you almost get into the routine where you just know this is what you do at this time of the year and this is how you handle this situation. So some of those things, it's been interesting for me to reflect back on as a mentor and say, "Okay, remember, you didn't know this before." [Anne Baker] I give her advice if she has any questions as far as teaching the content, any advice like on classroom management. Random questions I guess she might have related to this particular school. She's really good about coming in even before she wants to meet with parents, that's kind of something that I think a lot of new teachers are unsure about how to handle that relationship between teacher-parent. And so, sometimes she'll come to me and say, "Okay. So how should I approach this?" Even just basic situations in the classroom that maybe she hasn't experienced, you know, just different things that she may not have thought about before. - Today, during their encore classes, they talked about bullying. And that's something in the schools we always talk about. Every student hears it a million times, teachers hear it a million times. But today really opened my eyes that it can't be said enough. Today at lunch, a girl dropped something and another student called her the B word, called her fat and then the student also continued to drop racial slurs throughout the rest of lunch. I had asked the students to write letters to me and, in the final paragraph, I told them that they could just share anything that they wanted to share with Mr. Roth. And one student wrote a paper and it was ripped at the bottom. Well, come to find out, there was a letter found in the auditorium, the original letter that he had written me. He had talked about some of his issues with depression and how lately he has had some suicidal thoughts. And this crushed me. That's something that I battled for so long in my life and to hear the student tell me that they feel that way. He gave me the ripped up portion of his letter for me to read because he didn't want anybody to find it because his original letter had been found. But, of course, parents were contacted immediately. I just hope that they aren't too hard on him because I've been there. And even though we know as adults that you don't need to feel that way, for that middle school child, he feels that way. Even though he wrote about it in a letter and it could just be a cry for help, why would I not respond with full action to that? Hi, my name is Caleb Roth. I'm from Conway Springs, Kansas. We have a population of about a thousand, we are very religious and football is everything. My graduating class only had 40 kids and we were considered one of the biggest. [Angie Mooneyham] It seems the population here is deep-rooted. My parents were here, my grandparents were here, you know, god forbid we leave the tracks, go out of town. I was so proud of my son that he wanted to leave the boundaries of this small town, I always say, "Go, go away. You can always come back, this will always be home but spread your wings." But mainly here, it's people that put their roots here and don't leave. I might not necessarily come back here myself in my future but I would never trade my upbringing for anything. I had family on almost every block, I had friends in so many different houses. On any given weekend, I wasn't inside, I was walking down the street to so-and-so's house, I was, you know, running up to the city park and playing with my friends. By the time I got to high school, I was an avid reader, I would go through a book in a day. I was meant to be a teacher, I was constantly taking care of kids, whether it be cousins or my own family. And so, I've always had that nurturing mentality and I actually had a Language Arts teacher that really, really opened my eyes to how awesome teaching as a profession can be and it made a difference in my life to have her as my educator. And so, I always used to joke that I was going to come back and take her classroom from her. I didn't necessarily fit in at school just because I wasn't like, you know, a farmer, I wasn't somebody that loved to play sports. In this small town, that was something that was more valued. Our journey together began early, I was, you know, 18 when I had him and going to my first year to college. Everybody stereotyped me. "Well, you're going to be the teenage mom and, you know, your oldest son's just going to be the next generation of welfare or..." And I always thought, "I hope that he follows in his determination in not living like everybody else does." And he did it. And he continues to prove to everybody that nothing will stop him. Nothing. Fingers down on page one. [Children] Fingers down on page one. Let's read together, friends. Ready? This week is kind of a wild one, coming up, our parent-teacher conferences and a field trip. And the most comical thing about it is that the field trip is to the Beach Art Museum on K-State's campus. Are you excited for the field trip today, guys? [Children] Yeah, yeah. What are you excited about? About painting art things. Where are we going? To the art museum. I'm not sure what's there for kindergartners, let alone my kindergartners. So wish us luck. We just left K-State, we went to the Beach Art Museum today for a field trip. Art museums are a challenge for five-year-olds. I have officially survived my first field trip as a fifth grade teacher and I am 100% completely exhausted. I really liked it but I didn't realize how stressful like getting ready for a field trip would be. We had to leave our building by 8:15 and school starts at 8:05 and so... It was crazy but everything went fine. They came home and the entire way home they couldn't stop talking. Less are singing "Wheels on the Bus" as fifth graders. I highly recommend, if you ever get the chance to go on trips with your students, go anywhere outside of the classroom with your students, do it because then you become a real person to them. You are no longer just this figure that stands at the front of the classroom and yells at them. I didn't have to sit there and be like, "Hey, get to reading. Hey, stop talking. Put that fidget spinner away." You are seen as a human being. They get to see you interact. So those are the days, like yesterday, I got to just kind of hang out and be a normal person with them. And it was just awesome. [Child] Where? In the corner. I don't see it. He's right there, right there. Our field trip to the Topeka Zoo and my mother is joining us with the trip. They're so big. They're so big, aren't they, Hayla? What we're going to do today is we are going to do the vocab game once again with our remaining words. They don't really tell you how to prepare for parent-teacher conferences. They don't really show you how to be prepared to tell parents that their child needs an IEP or their child needs to be tested. Parents, 9 times out of 10, are in there to strictly talk about academics and, "What are my student's grades? How can they raise them?" You know, even though it's another quarter and it's hard to raise a grade, I found it very beneficial to just have a personal conversation with the parents. Don't see it as, "These are the grades, this is how they need to fix them." You just need to go in there and be yourself and be personable. It means the world to parents if you as a teacher show that you know their child. I thought a lot about, "How can I make this a good experience for the parents?" Because this, for a lot of them, is their first child and so their first parent-teacher conference and their first school conference or anything like that. So I kept trying to tell myself that I have all these numbers and I have all these papers but none of that really matters. It matters like all the good things I can tell them about their child. So one of the little things I did to try to make it enjoyable and keep me kind of on track, I wrote these little papers for each kid and it said, "Three glows and a grow." So three things that glow about their child that...like our favorite thing about them and then one area where they could grow. I started conferences with that, so hoping to open up on a light note and it seemed to be received very well. And then, they can put it on their fridge or something, so I just decided it was better to emphasize the positive a whole lot more right now and kind of pick the biggest area of growth. I personally loved it because it's a great way to make students take ownership of what they've been doing. So when the parent asks, "Well, why is all this work missing?" The student can't be like, "They just haven't graded it yet," or, "He didn't explain that." Instead, I'm sitting right there, I'm helping them through it and my student has to be honest because I'm right there and they know that if they're not honest, I'm going to be honest. Tomorrow is Halloween. It's on a Monday that means the entire day is going to be insane. All the kindergarten teachers we are dressed up as Mario Kart and I am Luigi. Then after lunch, it's when it gets really fun. Have a Halloween party then we do a parade around the whole school of our costume. In honor of Halloween, I did up my door because why not have a little festivity in the classroom? Halloween is definitely crazy though. You have to be prepared for those sugar-high students because the days leading up to it and the days after it are all just discombobulated and crazy because they are eating candy left and right. They're excited to go out and hang out with their friends and do all these fun things, that school is just not a focus. And that was when we saw quite a few behavior issues, but overall, it's done, we've survived and there's not much that went too terribly wrong. We had a Halloween party and I was a little anxious to see how this party was going to be because I didn't know if they would still be excited to have Halloween party or kind of think it was just childish. They loved it. You know, with a party, I think you just have so much energy in your students and it's so fun to see that side of them. You know, another piece of advice that I have for all teachers is to just really enjoy those parties with your students. And that is where good relationships are formed with your students because who doesn't like a party, you know? Who doesn't like to do things outside of what you typically do at school? Friends, we're acting right now like we never came into our circle. Defiance and misbehavior in my class has become something I'm used to and I'm not flustered by it anymore. I'm still leaving school discouraged in some way or another. I kept saying, "Well, it's going to get better, it's going to get better." And, every day, in some way or another, it's just been harder. They are not kidding when they say that you can get burnt out quickly because I'm feeling burnt out. At first, I didn't know what was happening and now I know that it's burnout. Probably the roughest week that I've had teaching thus far regarding students as well as parents and it just put a lot of pressure on me, just those little things that you, you know, don't think about until they happen. Just a lot of different parent emails that kind of made me second-guess how I was teaching, second guess my gradebook, second guess the material that I'm covering and what I'm doing in the classroom. I'm trying to remain positive about it. I'm giving so much of myself. Like I'm giving every ounce I can to the point where I'm just exhausted. I'm trying to keep the energy and I'm trying to keep positive but so much negative is going on right now, not only just in my life here at school but in life in general. And it just seems at every turn, there's just more reason for me to like not even bother. I kind of feel like I'm in that point where nothing that I'm going to do is going to be good enough but I know that that's not true. I mean, I'm the first person to admit that I'm struggling with classroom management and that it'll be a struggle all year long. And there's way, way more to teaching than just getting up there and teaching the content. And sometimes it's a lot and sometimes I'm just kind of like, "Why did I choose to be a teacher?" And then, I look at those kids and I remember these kids are why I'm here. And that these kids deserve the very best version of me every single day. It may be hard, it may be really, really hard some days and there's some days that you might just not even want to get out of bed but, on the other hand, you know, they're worth it. And I wouldn't have picked another job if I could. To those people, you know, when you have those rough weeks, to never forget why you're doing this and to never forget why you teach. I hope I'm good at survival mode because I think it's going to become a new normal. So two weekends ago, I was able to go down to Dallas-Fort Worth area, kind of just get away for the weekend. So my boyfriend and I went down and saw my sister and her fiance and just spent the entire weekend with them. It was really cool to just be away from school and be away from lesson planning, being away from grading and take that time and just hang out. We went kayaking, we went downtown Dallas one night and just had a good time together. So it was really, really fun to just kind of catch up on some me-time and spend some time with my boyfriend, spend some time with my sister. You graduate college, you know, you're like, "I got this, I can do this, student teaching was a breeze. How hard can this really be?" But when you're the one that's making the thousand decisions a day, it can get really overwhelming and really overwhelming very quickly. And having an outlet is so important, whether it's binge-watching Netflix or going to the gym. Just having that one hour to myself where it's just me, my music, the weights, running, whatever I choose to do, has been such a relief for me because that's my hour of the day. That's the day that I can focus on me. Do something that you're paying for or that you've signed up for, that you're committed to. I think that, for just your mental sanity and your break, you need that. Whether it's going to dinner, whether it's doing something socially, do something for yourself that you enjoy. Little things like that for yourself will really help your sanity. Always keep snacks in the classroom. Today, I was walking around feeling like I was going to throw up because I was so hungry. So already started eating my trash. I've got my coffee open, I've got my water open. And I always have a drawer full of snacks for the students and for myself. I introduced what I like to call as, Santa Mail. Sent from the North Pole. And I had it in the freezer, so when I got it out, I was like, "Oh, this envelope is all cold and why is it so cold? Oh, it says it's from the North Pole. Do you guys know what that is?" In addition to the day that the Santa Mail came, I wrapped up this little dude. We talked about what his name was and why he was here and that the elf was going to probably watch us from Thanksgiving to Christmas to make sure that we're on the nice list. And we had a big talk about the nice list and that I could call Santa whenever I needed but this little guy will go home at the end of every week and fly home and tell Santa what was happening. It says, "Dear Ms. Brady and friends, my elf's name is Zippy. He sees everything, so remember to always stay on the nice list. Love. Santa." Then I talked about how Santa put a Santa cam in which is actually the smoke detector. They loved it. So, finished out my first semester, really awesome. It was long, it was hard, it was grueling but, you know, I survived. Hey, what else can I ask for? I let them draw on my board, I let them play board games. It was just really nice to kind of let them just be kids for a little bit. [Child] There's going to be a lot of Goofys outside. A lot of Goofys? The day of our Christmas party, all the kids signed up for a different thing to bring. This little boy, he comes in in the morning and he's all discombobulated like, "I have something in my backpack for you, Ms. Brady." What is going on? So he hands me two store-bought packages of chocolate chip cookies. So I just kind of open it. He's taken a bite out of every cookie in both boxes. I brought him over and I'm like, "Come here, come here. So I was just looking at these cookies that you brought and did you, by chance, look at them before you brought them?" "No." "There's a bite taken out of every cookie. Do you have an elf at your house?" "No." "Did you take a bite out of each cookie?" That just like made me laugh. First day of break and we already have a white Christmas, so I'm not complaining, that's for sure. I've been drinking coffee all day, I even got my "Teachers Rule" coffee mug. What are you doing? Just making some more cookies. Cookie Monster. Oh yes, Gram, that's a gift from the kindergartners. Thank you. Or it can also be a car freshener. I did a lot of laying around, I slept until like 10:00 every day which I didn't think was going to happen but...it's just kind of weird how like my anxiety level was so chill for break and I really truly forgot about life at school. And then, coming back just like hit me like a train. - Week one after Christmas break is in the books. We just started right in with adjectives and I taught some writing. But one of my things over break that I just kept rolling on was, "How can I help these kids be more responsible?" Some of them can't turn anything in and they struggle to just know what they're supposed to do for the next day. And so, for this quarter, I really want to try focusing on taking ownership, being a leader, those life skills that they're going to need way past sixth grade. What is that? The Sun. It's been a pretty good start. The kids still raise their hands. I am enjoying teaching. Like math, loving it the past few days because it's hard. Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner. Now it's kind of like higher-level thinking and I'm enjoying it a little bit more. So how does the freedom of choice, or lack of freedom of choice, affect the quality of our life? It's back-to-school time. We are officially back in session. I'm still struggling a little bit with falling back into that routine. But it's been going pretty well so far, no complaints. In fact, everything kind of seems almost a little too good. My students have come in well-prepared and they've kind of got right back into the swing of things. I haven't really seen any behavior issues yet. I mean, it is still early on. I would hope we're not going to see anything too crazy during these first few days. [Skylar Ross] Hi, my name is Skylar Ross. I'm from Linwood, Kansas, and I am a first-year teacher. So my teaching experience is a little bit different from the normal teaching experience. I started in early January. I got hired from the Shawnee Mission School District to take the place of a teacher that was just switching positions within the building. And so, instead of starting in August and having them all year, I started midway with them having one teacher for three or four months and then having me for the rest. [Hayley Parker] And that was definitely another challenge coming in in the middle of the year. The teacher before him had already kind of taught these students a specific way, so he was bound and determined. He goes, "I'm going to somehow make this work." So growing up in Linwood was like living in the typical American small town. Everything else always seemed more interesting to do if it wasn't in town. [Maureen Ross] It's changed over the years. It used to have livery stables, banks, hotels and it was quite an active town many years ago for the railroads. Skylar is the youngest of four. He was the toughest, the most independent, always on his own. [Matthew Ross] And he was very athletic and then, in high school, he enjoyed football. He took to sports like a duck to water. All the way up from elementary school playing soccer, into middle school starting to play football and then onto high school doing every sport I could. When I was 18 years old, I was playing a football game against Perry-Lecompton and it was towards the end of our season. And circumstances happened and I ended up getting a concussion. I first got hit the second quarter and didn't really think anything of it. Went out for the second half the game and I got hit again really, really hard, even harder than the first time. Two weeks of that school year, he doesn't even remember and he was driving to school, scary enough, those days. Got my concussion about October and it continued on through November and December. I had a teacher, he started talking to me and he was like, "Hey, is everything okay?" I was like, "Oh yeah, I'm fine." And he kind of saw through that and he said, "What's going on?" I told him that I really can't remember anything, short-term memory is just... it was not there. He sat with me for 45 minutes every day after class and said, "What do you need help with?" After I started working with him in math, then everything else started happening a little bit better. My memory came back. He's one of the main reasons why I want to become a teacher. It doesn't surprise me he became a teacher. But just to have always had the ability to see when someone needs something. He's pretty willing to think of them first. I think something we forget a lot of times as adults and just kind of overlook is that these children are people. They have thoughts of their own. That's the whole point of them going to school. They see things and they can figure things out. You know, diversity, it's all over our country and it's great to welcome that into the classroom. And so, I look forward to being able to really individualize everything for my students. I can't just do the same old lesson every single day. You have to make it your own. You have to take the curriculum and your resources and really cater it to your students. And it's a challenge. You do it the way you know and you may get, out of 26, you may get 18 of them on board and they understand it. But then, you still have eight that are like, "Well, I don't know." And so, that's when you have to start digging into your memory bank and thinking, "All right, how is another way I can explain this?" Really being able to say, "All right, well, I did get it this way and most of my class does, but I still need to make sure that these other ones have a chance to do it as well. You know, I gained a student and she was taught a completely different way than how we were teaching it on the test. And so, it was just kind of like that frustration of, "Hey, you've got to learn this way." Differentiation is so important. You have to think intentionally about every single one that you do and you have to write it down and document it and I'm modifying things all the time. After a little bit of practice, those challenges and struggle kind of becomes a little more second nature for you. What did you name him? Lucky. What? Lucky. Lucky the dog? Lucky the... Shamrock man. Shamrock man. Lucky the Shamrock man. Are you ready to go hang him in the hallway for St. Patrick's Day? Yes. Yep. What did you name yours? Chasey Patrick. Chasey? Chase from Paw Patrol? Patrick. Chasey Patrick? Are you ready to put your little guy together? Uh-huh. Okay, let's see. How is going to fit? Today, I experienced something kind of hard, I guess, one of those things that just working here on a military installation that provides challenges that you can't really always predict. One of my little guys who's been probably the most bold character personality here in the class, he's been my reason I have headaches, the reason the principals have headaches. He's just come so far, still behavior problems but I've learned to just love the heck out of him. And we got word that his family's moving. They were clearing from Fort Riley, meaning they would no longer be active in the military and getting out as soon as possible. His birthday's tomorrow actually and his mom said, "I'd like to have a party for him on Wednesday." He didn't come Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday. And I have so much of his snack and pins and pencils and paper and folders and... Not that that's closure but I get to say bye to them and I get to say, "I'm so proud of you and I'm going to miss you and our class isn't going to be the same and..." I kind of thought maybe he'd show up today. And then, when I went to do my attendance, he wasn't even on my roster. He's not here anymore and that just sucks. Like they don't tell you that sometimes your kids just won't show back up and that's hard. I guess I've kind of just come to the point that, you know, no matter what happens in my day, they're my group of kids and I enjoy them and care for them and...I've had a kid move away and so he had a postcard that he wanted to take with him and it was like a picture of Dobby. And so, I wrote our address on it and he actually like wrote back to us and talked about his new school and gave us his address and so we're going to start pen-palling with him. And so, really just making sure if he's still involved in our, you know, Irish family. And sorry...it's just a knife in the chest but... But that was kind of a hard thing too, like, losing your first kid, so... And then, I had another student, her dad just deployed and so she was a wreck for about a week, coming to school crying every day. And mom pulled her out for three days and you know, I totally get that and like just being really supportive of everybody in their time of needs, when everybody has a time of need, it kind of just puts like this unexpected strain on...especially when it all happens at once. It is rapid-fire, Taylor. We also got a new student this week which was terrifying. And we had introduced her to everybody, everybody introduced to her, she was very, very quiet. I didn't know what to do for a new student. I was really worried that I didn't do what I needed to the first day. But as we were dismissing, she went to the office to go home, and as I was walking to the office, she sprinted down the hallway and gave me a huge hug and said how excited she was to be in my class and just how excited she was about the entire school year. It kind of melted my heart a little bit. I'm really excited. I think it's going to be fun. It's the second semester here and we are actually in our second six weeks already. Things are just flying by and it's just been a really, actually awesome ride the second semester. It's been crazy like the night and day difference I feel between last semester and this semester. And part of it might be that the end is in sight, so I feel more relaxed. It could be that I've got a few better things going for me and not so many family members sick, those type of things. But honestly, it is so much of just getting used to the trade and used to the battles and used to like that flow of teaching. I now can say, surviving my first semester here, that you are going to be tired, you're going to be exhausted, you're going to feel like every day's a battle and struggling with all these different things. And I can honestly say that already, this second semester, I have found a renewed passion and so much joy within my students. It has truly been a great semester even with its struggles. I've got an email from a parent this morning wanting to talk. That's a terrifying thing. I was hoping it's going to be like a 15-20 minute meeting and she just left about 10 minutes ago. So a 15-20 minute conversation turned into a half-hour conversation about what her daughter thought of me and just overall how I could help the situation that was happening. And we got it handled. But this parent said, you know, "I've talked to other parents and they were really happy with the way you're doing stuff." And I've had quite a few parents shoot me emails and say, "Hey, Mr. Ross, you're doing an awesome job." And as teachers you just kind of soak it up and eat it up. And sometimes it runs off your back and you don't worry about it, you don't say anything about it, it doesn't ever affect you. And then, sometimes you're like, "Man, I needed that. I'm so glad, so glad you said that." - The parents play such a major role in how kids are treated and handled and what they come to school like and how they perceive learning. I've got parents that are, you know, "Whatever you need, I will be there for you and I'm going to, you know, help you out in the classroom and donate when I can," to, "You're a first-year teacher, you don't know what you're doing," to, "Here's all of the drama in my life." I've also had conversations with parents that went very, very, very bad to the point where they were crying on the phone while talking to me because I didn't understand how unique and special their child was. And I found it very hard for myself to stay calm. I was like, "Okay, Caleb, you got to make sure you're not overreacting, make sure you're not instigating or pushing things further." Luckily, I worked in retail for a long time, so I'm very used to that angry customer type. You just have to be prepared to deal with those parents that aren't happy with their item. They are not happy with what's going on and they are not afraid to let their voices be heard. Each week, I'm just looking for a student to kind of like stand out and go the extra mile or maybe it's something as simple as, "Your son held the door for me when he very easily could have just kept walking on." Making that known to parents, I find, has been really important. It's also been really interesting to see how parents are responding to getting a phone call from their student's homeroom teacher. One mom in particular just sounded so panicked on the phone when I was speaking with her about her son or daughter. And I just said, "You know, oftentimes you don't hear the positive things from a teacher." Once those parents feel like they have a connection with the teacher, that the teacher knows their son or daughter, that makes a huge difference just in the interactions that I have had with the parents. Good morning. So it's the last day of school. I realized it's the last time I'll probably ever go through that gate because I don't think I'll ever find myself back on Fort Riley. Just kind of sad and I kind of got annoyed earlier because I don't really do emotions very often. And I already have these dumb goosebumps and I know that I'm going to have them all day long because it's going to be a day full of feels. And so, I'm just going to keep my sunglasses on all day. We have made it, it is over, the year is up. I cannot believe I survived. I am exhausted, I feel a million years older but my heart is also very full. It's been a really hard day, saying goodbye. I handed out the letters to students, I also pulled them to the side and told them each individually kind of just why I appreciated having them in class and how I'm going to miss them. Like here, I've got pages after pages that people colored me. You can see some writing up here. A bunch of them wrote things on the back, so that way they could just give little notes to me. I told them I'm hanging all of these on my fridge and I want to be able to remember them. Somebody even took the time to paint me a picture. This is awesome. They took so much time to make this and they made it for me. It was just a really good reminder that my students appreciated me and it just goes to show that teaching is a very intrinsic job. You have to remember that you are changing these children's lives. I had so many students say that I was the only positive thing in their day. And I even had one student flat out say, "Mr. Roth, whatever you do, I hope you teach middle school because your positivity, kids need that." Those kids mean so much more to me than they will ever know. And I will miss them so, so, so much. You go through all of the up and downs that are...being a first-year teacher. You'll figure it out then. If you go in with that attitude that you're better than everyone else, you're not going to make it very far. And if you're not willing to accept feedback, you're not going to make it very far. And if you're not a professional, you're not going to make it very far. I'll add this into the things nobody tells you. The only true power that I have in the world is my reaction to things. I have the power to plan any lesson I want. Yeah, great. But when things happen to you or when you need to make things happen in your life, sometimes you forget that your reaction to good and the bad is very important because it sets a precedent for what's going to happen next. Having a calm demeanor, sometimes saying less is the most important thing. And taking the high road is something that I've learned is so valuable. There are so many times where you can truly doubt yourself as a teacher. You're looking around at all these other teachers and you're like, "Well, they've been teaching for so much longer. Wow, how do they do this? That's probably the best way to do it." But just like everybody on this Earth is different and has different ways of doing things, so do us as teachers. We cannot have every single classroom be the exact same. How are we going to get to meet students where they're at, like that? We've made it through here. A few times I didn't know if I would but we made it through. I've only been here since January and so I didn't really think I made that much of an impression on my kids. I thought they hated me sometimes because I'm kind of strict. I had one student in particular that he was really struggling with his anger. Then I had given him just a note card and it had "Eight things to calm you down." And yesterday at graduation, the first thing he said to me is, "Mr. Ross, I still have that piece of paper and I use it all the time." It's something that I just thought off the top of my head, "Hey, this might help him." And, in reality, it actually did. And I was like, "Wow, that's something else." If there's anything I could leave to future teachers it's that don't be afraid to fail because you will. You're not perfect. You're going to mess up a lot. And that's okay. I think I just now finally realized what this is all about. If I didn't do what I do, the world couldn't do what it does. And I have the most important job in the world. And I think I just now realized the importance of my profession, something that it's really, really, really hard. But I'd rather have it be really, really, really hard, and know that I am actually making a ripple effect for ages. This is the gift, to be able to say that I'm a teacher.