Letter to Myself (Blog Post 4)

Dear Aleisha,

One of the things I've learned from this year is that all the worry, the stress, the sleepless nights over things like student teaching, the KPTP, various milestones and tests, and searching for a job, is pretty much worthless. When it's all said and done, you made it (hallelujah!) and the anxiety didn't help you any. All that time that you spent worrying could have actually been put to better use. But that's okay; next time, you'll know better.

It feels like just yesterday we were walking into the middle school to start student teaching, worries and wonders aplenty. Approaching the last day of student teaching, the last day with my students who I have come to know and love, my emotions are all over the place. I thought that I would just be excited to be done; I'm finding that I'm also saddened. Part of it--I'm sure--is the melancholy of leaving my school, my MT, and my beloved students. A larger part of it--and here's the philosophical side of us coming in--is probably due to the amount of change that is approaching. We're looking at the end of student teaching, the end of classes with people we've gotten to know over the last two years, graduation thus the ending of our time at college. We're looking at a lot of endings. But with endings always come new beginnings: a new job, a new school, new colleagues, new students to get to know and love. To borrow from the words of Semisonic: "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end"; and that's the really exciting part.

The practical part of me, the one that is less emotional about all of this--and certainly less sentimental--is screaming at me to give you some advice for your first year of teaching and beyond. This first piece relates back to the emotional, sappy portion of this letter and that is: don't take the small amount of time that you have for granted. We had a good friend once tell us, "You'll never be in this moment again, so enjoy it and stop wishing for what comes next." She is so smart! So, when you're frustrated and ready for the year to be over, your students are driving you to just this side of crazy town, remember: you will never get that time, that moment back with those people. Enjoy it, invest in those people and opportunities, and the rest will take care of itself...or we will when we get there.

This next part is one you're going to need to read, and re-read, and, well, re-read. I can not emphasize this enough: ask for help. We have a tendency to go it alone, thinking that we can do it ourselves, refusing to ask for advice until the last possible moment. Don't do that! There are people around you that are so much smarter than you and they would probably love to dump their smarts all over you and your classroom. Let them. You have a lot of learning left to do, which means you have to allow others to teach you. Also, shut up and listen once in a while. We talk a lot. Listening takes more work, but is more worthwhile so do it.

While you're listening and asking others for help, make sure you ask the right others for help. We've heard it a million times from classmates and instructors, but it is so true: avoid those teachers who are negative! We've done a pretty good job of that during student teaching--so kudos to us--but make sure you continue that through your first year. The last thing we need is a negative person squashing down all of the "shiny, new-teacher enthusiasm" we have going for us. Remember why you're a teacher--essentially why you do what you do--and I think you'll be okay.

Remember those little victories--when a particularly challenging student told you that you're their favorite teacher, when a student who thought they couldn't write wrote an amazing poem, when the lights go on and a student figures out that reading isn't lame and it isn't boring and it isn't stupid--and that Mom told you to write them down in a journal and you didn't? Well, do it next year. Keep a journal of every victory, even the small ones--especially the small ones--to look at when you're feeling stressed, overwhelmed, and like what you're doing doesn't matter.

It does matter. And it always will. 

--Aleisha