Here Come the Water Works

Today was my last day as the building sub at my school. I thought I'd be able to make it through it okay since I'd been fine lately but oh man. When I tried to talk and thank some of my particular co-workers that really helped me out a lot, the tears started welling up. I managed to keep it together because I didn't want my students to see me like that.

It really was hard. We only had an hour and a half of school today and probably more faculty than students. I'm grateful someone took a chance on me and that I ended up at the school I did. It was a tough school but I'm a lot stronger as a teacher than I was a year and a half ago. And I've made some good friends.

My next step is I'll be teaching kindergarten for summer school in a nearby district. I'm excited to finally be the teacher and not the sub in someone else's classroom dealing with someone else's class.

I feel like I'm taking a lot of small baby steps toward becoming a teacher. Most people hop out of college and into the classroom. I went from college to daycare to subbing, back to college, then building subbing, then summer school. I sometimes wonder two things about myself:

1. If I'm addicted to school. Almost as far back as I can remember (which is back to preschool), I've been in school and operated on school year time. Other professions work on regular January-December calendar after they're done with school. Teachers operate on the same schedule we were on throughout our years as a student. I wonder if subconsciously I became a teacher because I don't know how to function on a different time schedule. After high school I went right into college, where I was working at the same grocery store for 6 years when I would come home for breaks. I didn't like that job but I knew I was on school year time so I only had to work there for the summer and then I could be out. Would I be able to be a productive member of society if I had to work at a job like that through the whole year like other people do? Then I went to graduate school. I was also subbing which meant, I was still operating on school year time and working a different job in the summer. Then what did I do? The minute I graduated I signed up for another course to teach English as a foreign language. Do I not know how to survive without having homework to do?
2. If I'm avoiding becoming a career teacher. I mentioned above all of the small steps I've taken since being in college. I wonder if all of those smaller steps are me trying to avoid being the full time teacher because I'm afraid. I'm afraid of all of the teacher stuff that happens behind the scenes. All of the stuff that you don't know how to do until you're in it. A lot of my teacher friends have been great with answering all of my questions but you never know what it's like until you do it and I'm scared to death. What if I become a teacher and I fail? I try to keep myself strong and confident though. Sometimes I just get a little down. So what do I do? Decide to fly to another country and teacher there -_-. Whose idea was this 🤣?