The first year of teaching is perhaps the most difficult year of one’s professional life. Ms. Reed is no exception to the difficulties faced by a beginning teacher. She is also not exempt from the growth as a professional teacher she has experienced over this year. Her pedagogy, philosophy, and student relationships have progressed and have been impacted by a year in the classroom. Ms. Reed is one of those people who has a passion for teaching, and that passion has been evidenced this year as she has moved from fledgling in the classroom to honing her craft and skills in her profession to emerge as one of the best and brightest newly licensed teaching professionals.
Ms. Reed began her tenure in her kindergarten classroom a scant two months after receiving her bachelor’s degree. The ink was still fresh on her teaching license when she first stepped into her kindergarten classroom. On that first day, a workday, she was meet with a dirty classroom with all of the furniture piled in a corner. Her first reaction was to bring life and color into that drab lonely little room. She cleaned, painted, put up colorful bulletin boards, and prepared her classroom as one that children would want to learn in. She met several times with her mentors to develop engaging lesson plans and prepare activities to stimulate her students’ minds both cognitively and physically. She even prepared a bag of treats for each child to enjoy on that glorious first day of school.
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"The Evolution of Ms. Reed".
As the first day of school dawned, Ms. Reed woke early because she was excited to begin her life as a teacher-as someone who would, and could, make a difference. As the parents dropped off their children at her classroom door, she engaged each child in a one on one conversation to make him/her feel special. She delighted in taking each child by the hand and leading him to his seat. She enjoyed watching his eyes light up as he tore into the bag of treats. She knew it would be a wonderful year.
Initially, the students listened, paid attention, and did all of their work. Ms. Reed, still in love with her work, continued to work hard to prepare engaging lessons. She began to have to deal with discipline issues. She quickly learned how to read her students and know when they were sad or happy. This helped her immensely with figuring out how to approach her children on a daily basis. She soon figured out how to develop lesson plans that were both engaging and in line with the state curriculum. She learned that when some of her students acted out that it was due to the fact that they were hungry or had not slept well the night before. She also learned that her students’ home lives directly affected their ability to learn. This did not stop her from pressing forward. If a student came to school hungry, she fed him from her secret stash of granola bars that she kept in her desk drawer for such an occasion. If a student came to school tired, she gave that student time to rest in the nurse’s office.
Ms. Reed realized that if she were to continue making a difference in her students’ lives that she would have to be their mother, father, counselor, nurse, and confidant, in addition to being their teacher. Often, when she went home, her heart was heavy with worries about all of paperwork and testing she had to do for each child. She learned to shoulder that responsibility as well, and she often worked well into the night to ensure her students would have an advantage.
Ms. Reed emerged from her first year of teaching knowing that this would be the career for her lifetime. She had always inherently believed that all children could learn, but now she had the experience to realize that they all learn differently. Armed with that knowledge, she can now prepare to enter her second year of teaching safe in the knowledge that she is making a difference.
