Day 20: Describe yourself during your first year of teaching and discuss how you've grown.

I almost laughed out loud when I read the title of this blog day.  I have to say that I am so thankful that I was 40 years old when I experienced my first year of teaching instead of 23 when I was just fresh out of college and student teaching.  I don't think I would have survived if I started at 23.  Honestly...

I've never been in a job where you are expected to know (almost) everything there is to know about the job in the first year.  Welcome to teaching.

My first year can be summed up in one word...survival.  Thank goodness the State of Iowa requires first/second year teachers to have a mentor.  I think I would have survived my first year without a mentor, but because of my mentor, I had a very successful first year. 

My first year of teaching, I was very lucky to have had 1st period as my plan period.  My mentor was a science teacher (like me) and so I would go to his room, watch him teach the lesson for that day, write down key notes and then go back to my room and teach it exactly how I had watched him teach it.

Over the course of the year, of course, I found my own style and started building my confidence and in my second year, I found my voice and started contributing to curriculum and lesson changes.  I also started working with grading changes.  My third year, I found that I was leading our PLCs, being more vocal on curricular changes and being a part of district curriculum meetings.  During that third year, I went back to school myself and added an endorsement.

For my fourth year, I switched curricular areas and restructured the curriculum based on expert research from Wormeli, O'Connor and the DuFours.  I started mentoring a first year teacher (science) and volunteered for more leadership committes in my building.  I continued working on yet another endorsement.

I am currently in my fifth year of teaching - still mentoring, still contributing to curriculum and I am co-coaching the Advisory program in our building.  

The growth has been amazing - the found confidence, the new experiences and the new learnings right along side my students.  I can't wait to see what the next five years will bring!