Lost my Light

This year marks my third year teaching kindergarten. This year is by far the most challenging group of students that I have ever worked with. On top of extremely challenging students I also have huge class sizes, 27 students in each of my classes (although I started the school year with 29 students in each class). 27 students might not sound like a lot but just imagine with me for a second, Of those 27 students if you're lucky only half have been to school before, 3 still can't write their names, 2 have severe behavior problems, 2 weren't potty trained at the beginning of the year and came to school in diapers, at least 8 in each class are already reading and writing, all 27 have talking problems, 1 student is a runner, over half of your students' lives are so much harder than you could possibly imagine. Most days I feel more like a babysitter than a teacher. I have one student who's behavior is so severe that I have to have another adult in my classroom with me at all times due to his tendency to run and so that they can intervene so that I can actually teach and focus on the rest of my students. The rest of the school knows how rough kinder is this year and they know all about my classroom challenges. I some times feel like the running joke. 

One day last week as one of my team members and I were waiting in the office for our last kiddos to get picked up one of my colleagues walked up to us gave me a hug and said "every time I see you your light is gone."  This one sentence has stuck with me for the last week. While I feel more confident this year in my own teaching ability the joy, excitement, and passion that I once felt seems to have disappeared. Don't misunderstand me I still love teaching and I love kids but this year is just so hard. I have so much support from my team members, my coaches, my principal, the school social worker, the school psychologist, and parents but I still don't feel like I have the support that I need. This year I feel that my focus is all on managing behavior and not teaching. 

We had the National School Board come to observe our school last month. Talk about pressure. We strategically placed my students in their different centers and with me and our kinder para so that the school board would only see "good things." Our school does something every other month called P.I.E walks where parents come into our school for two hours, they are divided into multiple groups where they are taken into multiple classrooms for 15 minutes at a time to observe the learning and teaching that is going on. This year due to the severe problems happening in my morning class I was told that they wouldn't bring parents into my morning class this year, at least during the first half of the year. On one side I was thrilled because it's nerve wracking to have 15-20 adults come into your classroom to observe you teaching their children. On the other side I was kind of bummed because I finally feel confident in my teaching abilities and want to show parents the good things that are happening in my class. 

I don't want to be know as the teacher who "lost her light" in her third year of teaching. I hate that I hate going to work everyday. I want to get the joy, excitement, and passion back that I had I two years ago during that first year. I love my kids and I want to be the best teacher that I can be for them. Now I just need to figure out a way to get my light to come back.