Week 1: Late Rejuvenation

My name is Jeanie and I teach 7th grade Social Studies. This is my third year at my school, but second year teaching 7th grade. I taught 6th grade SS my first year.

Honestly, over the summer, I felt a lot of disillusionment. At the end of the last school year, I found out that the principal changed my team. It was devastating. I worked with one member throughout my entire time at my school, and another, Emily, became a very dear and amazing mentor to me. We worked so well together. At the end of the year, our team had significantly less referrals than any other team in the 7th grade. I attribute that to our positive outlook and reward-driven team discipline plan, which I hoped I could carry-on to my next team and school year.

In July, I met with my new team to discuss some of the team logistics. None of us had ever worked with each other, so we had to start from scratch. It was difficult because we are all such different people with very different philosophies. Although we seemed to disagree on many issues, we were all willing to compromise. That, I think, is one of the most important attributes a teacher can have, flexibility, an open-mind, and a willingness to compromise.

The change in team was only one of the big changes I'm experiencing. My school changed our entire schedule from a middle school to a junior high model. We still have teams, but we no longer have planning as a grade, instead it's with our subject. This means I'll be more on my own. It also means teaching five classes instead of four. There are many pros and cons, but the biggest pro is that we have smaller class sizes (an average of about 18) and the biggest con is losing a portion of our planning. Planning is a valuable time to talk and get advice from other colleagues, and the thought of losing that is daunting for me as a new teacher.

Despite the many changes, and the anxiety I felt, it all changed after today. Today was the first day of school. I was not looking forward to today, or even this year. However, I didn't let that ruin my mood. And I ended up having a fantastic day! The kids reminded my why I do this. I love teaching. I love sharing my passion and connecting with students.

I want to end on a success that I had today. I listened to a lot of Ted Talks this summer, and one of them stuck out to me. I can't remember which one, but this person said we need to tell the kids WHY they should care about our subject. That's kind of a tall-order for Social Studies, but I took it on! I gave them three reasons 1. to prepare them for their future job in a globalized world, 2. to help them understand the development of current events and how they came to be, 3. fight ignorance.
I used real-life examples for each (including a cringe-worth quote from Brittany Spears), and they agreed! They nodded their heads, asked questions, even agreed and added their own stories. I really think they got a new appreciation for the subject before they even started it. I think I'm going to start every year with my "argument" to get them to CARE about learning my subject.