Wednesday, July 30, 2008

I met the new crop today

Today was registration day in my school system. The students come to school just long enough to find out who their teacher is and wait for their parents to fill out the first wave of paperwork. I started the day with 20 students in my class. I had 23 by lunch time. We have 8 kindergarten teachers and all of us have between 23 and 25 students. Our state limit is 20. It's going to be a long year.

It was nice to finally meet the kids. I'd had their names since yesterday but they were just that - names. Today they became real to me. And, I fell in love with all of them. I dread this day every year because it's wild and chaotic. However, by the end of the day, I'm ready to get the school year started. They were all so cute and excited. It was impossible to not let their excitement rub off on me. They varied widely in experiences and abilities. (Most notable was the one reading on a 3rd grade level before starting kindergarten.) There is a tough month ahead for all of us but after that, we'll gel into our own little "family" of sorts. The good, the bad, the ugly - we're all there but we are there together. I can't wait to see what we do together!

If I can just survive tomorrow. Tomorrow is the worst day of the school year. ALL the teachers in the whole county converge on one high school. They call it training but it's rarely anything we didn't already know. It's a long, hot, boring day of meetings that might semi-relate to our teaching assignments when every one of us has things we really need to be doing to get our classrooms ready for the students on Monday. Grrr!

3 comments:

EasterApril said...

Ok, now I'm thankful to my school district that on the first day of school, we only have a half day of meetings and then a half day to work in our rooms - ok, maybe a thank you to the negotiating committee that got that in our contracts. Your classroom size is huge!!! Hope your first day with the kids goes well. Leesa

Mongoose said...

You know, school PD days always annoyed me, but now that I read your take on their usefulness or lack thereof, I'm gonna be twice as annoyed with them. :)

Good luck tomorrow!

Tudu said...

MY kids have 13 in their class. You poor thing!