Anyone who knows me can tell you that I love my job. Teaching is so much fun and I never go to work in a bad mood. I love talking to the kids and seeing that little light bulb click when they learn something new. Now it's a different ballgame. Any teacher can tell you how much of a pain Common Core is. Between the new evaluations, assessments, and standards there is a lot of change to deal with all at once. First of all, I am terrible with change. I like routine, which is why I think I get along so well with my first graders. Also, no one really taught us what to do with the standards. It was like they handed us the new stuff and said "Good luck!". The good thing is, there are so many awesome teachers who have created lessons and assessments to share online. The hard part is finding time to look for it, print it and use it in the correct way.
So. In a nutshell. I am completely overwhelmed. My team is hardcore and they are jumping right into it all. I still am pretty new and am still trying to get comfortable in the new district. I had a little mental breakdown last week as I was trying to hang all my content goals for each subject (to be changed each time we cover a new topic), find out which standards aligned with the lessons/assessments I was giving, map out a whole year in math, plan meaningful reading and writing activities, assess my students reading levels and try to have some fun in that room! So far I don't have any difficult parents so that makes it a little easier. The kids are great too and I have a very small classroom size (16 as opposed to last year's 30!).
Hopefully it will get better as the school year goes on.
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