Ten Things I’ve Learned Since Becoming a School Teacher

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1. Turns out, many things in my life that I *thought* were necessary, weren’t. This includes: sleeping, exercising, eating well, reading for pleasure, reading blogs, talking to friends/family, doing laundry, cooking dinner and blogging. Some probably need to be done (exercise *cough* exercise), but for now, they are on the back-burner.
2. History is WAY more fun to teach than I thought it would be.
3. Grammar is way LESS fun to teach that I thought it would be. Okay…I never really thought it would be fun, but I thought it would be a lot easier.
4. Kids are smarter than we give them credit. If you expect great things, they will deliver (most of the time).
5. I am not as smart as I once thought I was…but I can pretend really well. *wink*
6. Grading papers takes about three times as long as I expected, writing lesson plans takes about 3,000 times longer than I expected, and I’m spending way too much one-on-one time with the copy machine.
7. I never anticipated working at a Christian school, but it is an amazing thing to be able to teach from a Christian worldview. Discussions can go so much deeper! I leave class thinking, “We talked about important things today.” It’s a great feeling.
8. Lesson plans were made to be broken. There’s simply never enough time to do everything! (I’m hoping I’ll figure out my rhythm, soon.)
9. Never underestimate the power that words of encouragement or a prayer to make things better. God has used several people–some good friends and some people who I barely know–to keep me afloat during the past few weeks. Maybe you could be that someone to a person this week!
10. I love teaching. I really love teaching. It’s hard, it’s exhausting, it’s neverending work, but it’s beautiful when it all comes together.

 

Stay tuned for “Things I’ve Learned Since My Kids Started Attending a University-Model School!” 🙂