Today I went back to my classroom to let me students meet Melody, to grab the last of my personal belongings, and to say goodbye to them before they move on to first grade.
I started the year full of excitement for what I thought was my dream job, and confident in my abilities. I learned pretty quickly that I was not nearly as prepared for the position as I had thought, and that the workload for Kindergarten was significantly greater than I had expected. I went in expecting it to be similar to preschool, but the standards that Kindergarteners have to meet in this country are absurdly high, which meant I should have been teaching highly structured lessons, keeping graded written work (including homework), and keeping close track of benchmarks being met by individual students. I would have expected this in a higher grade, but not Kindergarten. As a result, I spent the better part of the year frantically trying to catch up to what seemed like an impossible task to accomplish with no built in planning time, no assistant in the classroom with me, and nearly constant meetings during the limited after school time I had before picking up my son. But I looked around at the veteran teachers on my grade level and they seemed to be doing just fine, so obviously it wasn't impossible.
This sent me into a depression, compounded by my attempt to go off of my medication during my first trimester of pregnancy. By this point, I was keenly aware of my shortcomings, but could not summon the mental strength to do what needed to be done.
On top of this already stressful situation, my relationships with the other teachers on my grade level were going from strained to hostile. I'm still not quite sure exactly what the issue was to start with, but for whatever reason I just rubbed them the wrong way and they made it very clear that I was unwelcome.
Around Spring Break time, things blew up with another teacher. Around that same time, my administrator started putting an immense amount of pressure on me to do things a certain way and offering "support" in the form of micromanaging everything I was doing. I got little to no positive feedback from anyone except my mentor during the entire year. It got to such a point that I had severe anxiety at the thought of going to work every day. With the support of administration and long term plans in place for the remainder of the year, I resigned a couple of weeks before my maternity leave was scheduled to start.
Overall I am pleased with that decision; it was clearly best for my and Melody's health. However, it has left me feeling like a bit of a failure. I couldn't command the respect of my coworkers, and worse, I did not meet the expectations of my boss. I am left wondering if teaching is the right field for me, and wishing I didn't have student loans and could just stay at home indefinitely.
As it stands, I do still plan to return to work after the holidays. I'll have to reapply to the school system and will only accept positions closer to home. My hope is that this school was simply not the right fit for me and a different place would suit me better. A different grade level, even. Time will tell.
Today reminded me, though, of what really matters. My kids were so excited to see me and show me things they had made and tell me what they had learned, and they're the ones I'm there for.
I'm grateful for the learning experience that this past year has been, but right now I'm so very glad to be at home with my little family!
I started the year full of excitement for what I thought was my dream job, and confident in my abilities. I learned pretty quickly that I was not nearly as prepared for the position as I had thought, and that the workload for Kindergarten was significantly greater than I had expected. I went in expecting it to be similar to preschool, but the standards that Kindergarteners have to meet in this country are absurdly high, which meant I should have been teaching highly structured lessons, keeping graded written work (including homework), and keeping close track of benchmarks being met by individual students. I would have expected this in a higher grade, but not Kindergarten. As a result, I spent the better part of the year frantically trying to catch up to what seemed like an impossible task to accomplish with no built in planning time, no assistant in the classroom with me, and nearly constant meetings during the limited after school time I had before picking up my son. But I looked around at the veteran teachers on my grade level and they seemed to be doing just fine, so obviously it wasn't impossible.
This sent me into a depression, compounded by my attempt to go off of my medication during my first trimester of pregnancy. By this point, I was keenly aware of my shortcomings, but could not summon the mental strength to do what needed to be done.
On top of this already stressful situation, my relationships with the other teachers on my grade level were going from strained to hostile. I'm still not quite sure exactly what the issue was to start with, but for whatever reason I just rubbed them the wrong way and they made it very clear that I was unwelcome.
Around Spring Break time, things blew up with another teacher. Around that same time, my administrator started putting an immense amount of pressure on me to do things a certain way and offering "support" in the form of micromanaging everything I was doing. I got little to no positive feedback from anyone except my mentor during the entire year. It got to such a point that I had severe anxiety at the thought of going to work every day. With the support of administration and long term plans in place for the remainder of the year, I resigned a couple of weeks before my maternity leave was scheduled to start.
Overall I am pleased with that decision; it was clearly best for my and Melody's health. However, it has left me feeling like a bit of a failure. I couldn't command the respect of my coworkers, and worse, I did not meet the expectations of my boss. I am left wondering if teaching is the right field for me, and wishing I didn't have student loans and could just stay at home indefinitely.
As it stands, I do still plan to return to work after the holidays. I'll have to reapply to the school system and will only accept positions closer to home. My hope is that this school was simply not the right fit for me and a different place would suit me better. A different grade level, even. Time will tell.
Today reminded me, though, of what really matters. My kids were so excited to see me and show me things they had made and tell me what they had learned, and they're the ones I'm there for.
I'm grateful for the learning experience that this past year has been, but right now I'm so very glad to be at home with my little family!
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