Day 4: What were you most worried about as you approached your first day as a teacher?

The list is long!

Fortunately, the State of Iowa requires a mentor for the first two years of a teacher's career.  Without my mentor, I would have never been as successful as I was those first years.  However, even with my mentor safety net, I had some reservations going into that first day.

Here is a "brief" list of my worries going into that day...

1.  What if I can't keep the class under control?
2.  What if a student swears at me?
3.  What if I make a mistake in front of the class?
4.  What if I can't remember to take attendance?
5.  What if my seating chart doesn't work?
6.  What if I call a student by the wrong name?
7.  What am I doing three weeks from now in the curriculum?
8.  What if a student lost his/her schedule?
9.  Am I really going to be here in this room with 30 kids all by myself?
10.  Am I organized enough?
11.  Do I really know what I'm doing?
12.  What if they don't sit down?
13.  What if I haven't planned enough for the time we have?
14.  What if a parent calls me after the first day?
15.  Why did I take this job?

And you know what I found out?  The kids were great - and everyone sat.  And I did mess up a few names, but the world didn't come to an end, and the kids were very forgiving.  I had planned too much in the lesson and I knew what I was doing three weeks into the schedule.  All in all, I had planned for the worst and the best happened - and I had an amazing first day of teaching.

Most of all, I learned to relax, laugh and go with the flow.  When you teach eighth graders, surprises occur, things don't go as planned and mistakes happen.

It's just like life.