A Secret Recipe

I've been told this before, but it's official: teachers are actors. The students in my first ever classroom of my very own are big kids; they're at the top of the school, sixth graders who test their limits and everyone else's constantly. Every day. Every minute. What ever battle they choose, I must always win. What ever choice they choose, I have to be ready for. How ever high they raise the bar, I have to go that much higher.

As a girl who is very sensitive, I have to act tough. As a girl who always cares way too much, I have to take a step back and act as though the decisions they make don't bother me as much as they do.

I am an actress in the profession of teaching. My secret recipe for surviving my first year is made up of ingredients I've gathered from all kinds of people (mostly my DAD).

The most crucial ingredient is knowing that the choices they make as kids do not reflect me as a teacher... it's being able to not care quite as much and having rules that are in black & white, and following through with those rules. (I am not much of a black and white thinker, therefore, this is something else I am adding to my acting repertoire). It's being able to recognize that these are just kids who were just like me. They're just trying to fit in and figure out who they are. I should be all too familiar with this.

Soon enough, I think this acting will come all too natural to me, I'll be a total professional. However, just like every profession, it requires a lot of training and a lot of practice.

My recipe for surviving this year also calls for my inner child to come out, which is what I can honestly say I am a professional at. It requires caring for these kids as though they are my real kids. I wouldn't really know what that's like yet, but I can only imagine: lots of tough love.

To complete this recipe, you need to enjoy it for what it is. You need to have a score card and check off each days as either "a great day", "a good day", or an "it could be better day".

I am a teacher, and as a teacher I am also an actress, among other things. I am a learner myself. I have a tough job that I love - it drives me crazy, it's never ending, and it's exhausting. My first year teaching is insane and makes me want to break down and cry some days... but then I remember my recipe and I realize all of these incredible things that I am learning with what seems to be the toughest class of a lifetime.

This is exactly what I wanted for my first year though, isn't it? To be challenged & to challenge my students.

Finally, no one can forget the ingredient that makes the whole recipe of surviving the first year teaching: God, friends, and family.