Miss Bennett in the Bay

It’s odd to me how different the second year is from my first. About this time last year is when my memory comes back. No joke, everything about the first 2 and a half months of school last year has been wiped from my memory. The stress of the constant survival mode of that time did not bode well for memory encoding. (It’s possible that it was also a self-defense mechanism, given how traumatic life was at that time.)

But now, I find myself in a very different place. Yes, October still sucks (as it always will as long as I’m a teacher.) Yes, I have to work nights and weekends sometimes. But I’m also able to go and take significant chunks of time off. Where I actually stop thinking about teaching for a while. I even (gasp!) read books or knit on the side these days.

Not that life is perfect. Believe me, there are plenty of things that I want to change about my classroom. Differentiation has been very challenging, because about half of my class came in reading on a kindergarten level. There are days where I still struggle with classroom management (usually the days when I’m just zonked.) And of course, the constant pressure of simply not having enough instructional minutes to fit everything into my day. (You know, the usual.)

But on the bright side, my kids are pretty well invested. They work pretty hard and really want to re-take quizzes if they don’t pass. They talk to me all the time about how they are growing their brains and getting smart. And I’ve already seen some significant improvements in some of their reading levels.

The most important improvement in this year, though, is with my own satisfaction with myself. I no longer feel like I’m just some random person pretending to be a teacher. I feel confident, organized, and like I have inner authority. As I mentioned, I have time to do things for myself. The biggest thing that’s happened is that I got engaged! Scott proposed to me last weekend. We took Monday off and spent a long weekend up in Napa. It was fabulous. Everyone has been so supportive and surprised! I love it. Now comes the question, how do I explain this to my students?