Easily Excitable

I don’t miss a whole lot from that first year of teaching. 

Duh. 

I miss the folks who’ve left since then. I miss a couple of the kids. 

(I said a couple. I meant that.) 

I kind of miss the rowdiness of the kiddos pre-Covid. 

One of the things I miss most, though? 

My brazen first-year-teacher stupidity. 

That was the good stuff.

Honestly? That specific brand of stupidity stemmed from the fact that I simply didn’t know enough to be scared. 

And that, folks, is the comforting thing about being a first year teacher: 

You don’t know what you don’t know. 

So, really, how can you be concerned about a monster that’s not even on your radar? 

Now, at the time, it wasn’t comforting:

I was stressed, constantly worrying that someone was going to walk into the dumpster fire that was my classroom. 

The good thing is that Bleckley County is really good about giving first year teachers a lot of grace.

That’s the way it should be: it’s the hardest year of your career! 

My first year or two is a montage of all my idiocy. 

Lots of inexplicable moments, folks. 

At one point, I found myself playing dodgeball on the tennis courts with my 2nd period class- many of whom were dressed in Winnie the Pooh onesies. 

Once, we acted out a drama where a student played the role of a grieved housewife who killed her husband with a frozen leg of lamb. 

It at times seems more like a fever dream than an actual career. 

When I came in to teach, I had nothing but an English degree and a good attitude. 

After two weeks, I only had the English degree. 

I had no student teaching experience. 

I had no lesson plans, apart from the ones my college professor made me do. 

I had no experience working with children. 

I didn’t even have an education degree. 

Can you tell me that this was not the biggest gamble in Bleckley County education history? Has the administration at the high school ever made a riskier decision?

Up until my first day of work in 2017, I’d never taught a class before, so to be honest (AND I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH), I’m still not sure I’m doing this right. 

But I’m trying really hard, and I drop words like ‘predicate nominatives’ and ‘verbals’ to give myself credence. 

That’s got to count for something. 

Right? 

I reflected on my own stupidity this week. 

I did so because I pulled some of my own old tricks back out of the bag. 

It all began with, “So, I made up an activity…” 

We had tests in my class on Tuesday. Then, on Wednesday, we had a reading day. 

Too much sit down! Too much silence! 

I need chaos! 

Therefore, Thursday, we did activities. 

I created a little activity with my ninth graders where they had to guess the costs of things. We were discussing value as we prepared to read “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker. 

If you ever want to see 9th graders all jazzed up, show them expensive things, and have them try to guess the prices of those expensive things. 

Then, to drive the point home, show them a 10 dollar bill, and have them imagine how value would change if we woke up to find ourselves in the apocalypse.

THAT’S SETTING IN MRS. KOTARA’S CLASS, BABY! 

10th grade got even more raucous.

That morning before school, I grabbed approximately 100 random little trinkets that I hope Trey doesn’t look for over the weekend. 

I then proceeded to put those items in bags at random. 

The kiddos then had to build a character, replete with character traits, from that bag alone. 

In one table’s bag, there was a bright yellow bedazzled shoe (a Wendy Meadows creation), along with blocks and something else (maybe a tube of chapstick?). 

One child said, “Our character was a leprechaun.” 

His partner said, “Dude, we said it was a Pre-K teacher.”

Student 1 then said, “Dude, same thing.”

What???

This was over-the-top, not a little chaotic.

It devolved from there. 

After this warm up, I proceeded to dump the box of items onto the floor in the hall, much to the janitor’s chagrin. 

“I’ll clean it up, I promise,” I whispered. 

I then had the kids come out, and they had 15 seconds to get 2-3 items. They bagged them up, folded down the tops, and sat them up against the wall. 

The entire class then came out into the hall, formed a line, and got a bag when I said go. 

A couple of kids wrestled a bit over a bag. 

I loved it. 

The kids proceeded to come into the classroom

Their job was to form a character around the contents of their bags.

They fleshed out a full-blown character just before the bell. Then, Friday, I did a mini-lesson on dialogue, and they had to write a page-long scene for this character. 

When it comes to writing, I like to think it’s all about making it new and flashy: we need a little pizzazz so I can compete with the TikTok. 

Again- and I cannot stress this enough- 

Class was chaos. 

But it was fun chaos. 

The jury’s out on how successful it was: the kids can 100% get creative when they need to, so we’ll see if we had any learning coupled with the fun. 

I did see a paper entitled, “Old Karen vs. the Kids,” so I’m excited about that. 

Plus, the kids were asking good questions about dialogue, though. That’s a good sign, right? 

Maybe?

This whole activity, along with the knowledge that it might just blow up in my face,

Well, it made me think about my favorite phrase when I was a first year teacher. 

Back in 2017, I would walk in, walk to the front, and say, 

“Okay, y’all, so I made up a game yesterday. I don’t know how it’s going to go, but…”

That was the way I lived my first year of teaching. I was the world’s most ignorant 22 year old, trying to get 14-16 year olds (and one 18 year old) to listen to me. 

I was bold- I’ll give myself that. 

I mean, really…

That kind of freedom to think, 

“What could possibly go wrong?” with every idea I had, and to be so ignorant that I truly, truly, truly had no idea just the multitude of ways that it really could go wrong. 

God protects children and idiots, and thank goodness He protected the village idiot for the first year. 

And every year after that, too, because I will still do things and think, “That could have gone REAL BAD.” 

I very much believe that the best way to learn is to have fun doing it. But, in that same vein, I do just think I focused a little bit too much on the ‘fun’ part that first year. 

I at least ask myself, “But will they learn anything?” now.

Having no clue what you’re doing? Not fun. 

Knowing you are the most clueless teacher in any given situation? Not fun. 

But! There is something to be said for all the things you learn from failing- from being truly horrible at something. 

My takeaways from that first year?

1. You can’t be scared if you don’t know what to fear in the first place. 
2. There are only two ways to go: up or out: I could only get better (there was no getting worse- comforting) or I could get a different job. 

(And the thing was, I knew that I would probably be worse at the next career than I was at teaching.)

There is something freeing about being at the bottom of your game. 

Plus, ignorance is bliss is a cliche for a reason, folks. 

First year teachers? Go with God. It gets better from here, and you will get smarter. 

But, remember: you will never be as much fun as you are right now…mainly because, from here on out, you will know better. 

And where’s the fun in that?!