Twas the night before teaching...

Day 12: Tuesday August 21, 2012

the daunting list...
still haven't checked it all off!

I woke up feeling rested after another Thunderstorm last night! I felt positive and “chipper” once I arrived to the school. I think I was expecting to feel anxious and nervous, but God’s amazing grace covered me once again. I handed in my staff information sheet and a picture for the first newsletter. The principal made a comment about my being efficient - I think I made some comment about hoping it would last, or “you haven’t seen me teach yet.” (Implying that I can’t promise to always be efficient! Handing in some information about myself isn’t overly challenging!)

First thing that morning, the secretary told me to expect that some parents would likely stop in to meet us and to introduce their children. I had a couple of my students that came in with their mothers on this day. I was a bit ashamed since my classroom wasn’t fully setup or ready, but it was neat to meet a couple of students and connect one on one before the crazy first day of school.

I setup my first bulletin board (see picture) after fighting with the paper - not enough paper off the role, too much paper...I worked up a sweat but there was a nice breeze coming into my classroom on this day. Some of the teachers were overwhelmed by the short amount of time left that we had for planning, which made me feel better because I felt overwhelmed, too. HOWEVER: it worried me a little bit, because I assume that experienced teachers know exactly what they’re doing and it wouldn’t take them as long to prepare as it would for myself. The Saskatchewan teacher’s organization called me and told me that I’m officially approved as a teacher in this province. That was an exciting phone call!

(This idea was from Marney! She suggested we come up with our class rules and post them on the bulletin board, along with signed cutouts of our hands - promising to try and keep the rules! I'll post a finished picture later.)

Another staff member named D told me that he’s going to give me a native name...but apparently it will take time, because you really have to know the personality/character of the person before deciding upon a native name! I’m excited for that.

The school was still looking to fill the Grade 8/9 position at this point, so they asked me if I had any other teacher friends that would be interested...I put a message about the position on facebook and it felt so odd! Al reminded me that I needed to get my police check and recent transcript into him, so I went over to the RCMP office on my lunch break to get another criminal record check. The officers here are very friendly and it’s a comfort to know that a couple of them live across the road.

After work that day, I had brought some potatoes to the school to make mashed potatoes for the potluck (I didn’t have a lot of options!) and at this point, my oven still wasn’t working - so I stayed at school to get ready. Before eating our dinner, one of the teacher’s broke out into song, it warmed my heart: “Oh, the Lord is good to me...and so I thank the Lord...” There was a great assortment of food at this potluck and I ate some caribou in a stirfry kind of thing - SO YUMMY! One of the teacher’s sons had gone hunting and the caribou ended up on my plate!

I was going to skip the volleyball option after supper, as I felt there were many more last minute preparations to do for the next day (TEACHING!)...however, the pressure was VERY high to play volleyball - and how dare I say no to my VP/Principal?! They even announced it over the intercom... “Would all staff in the building report to the gym for volleyball - at least half an hour!” I couldn’t resist...and I’m glad I didn’t! It was a fun time and it was nice to do non-school activities with the staff.

I went home that evening and felt mostly calm about the next day - of course I was a bit nervous, but I managed to procrastinate some more...the power flicked off at one point and that made me realize I should work hard to plan incase the power went again! (I took it as a warning...) I did some late night lesson planning in the thunderstorm, it was pretty special.