Coming to terms with my new profession

So this is a little delayed, but it's a topic I really wanted to address.

I have always considered myself fairly prepared to adjust and make changes when a lesson doesn't succeed. Given the chance to do a fifteen minute mini-lesson last year was invaluable, and I was very pleased to see how successful it was. I was then given the opportunity to present it again to a different group of students, and it essentially landed flat on its face for a variety of reasons. Regardless, it was a valuable learning experience. It is unfortunate when things do not go as planned or when the students aren't being responsive, but we as teachers are granted the luxury of being able to adjust and try things again, even if it's a year in the future. I'm also pretty sure that I am prepared to stand in front of a room of 30 plus students and teach. This sounds pretty simple, but I mean strictly from a sense that I'm not nervous about being in that position- I'm not nervous about the public speaking aspect or having them all rely on me as their teacher. I think I'm prepared in that regard.

What I am nervous about is getting overwhelmed with all that is required of me: constant lesson planning, IEP's, helping struggling students, talking to parents, dealing with the administration, grading, mini-lessons, etc. There are a whole host of things that I feel like I may get bogged down with, and for me it's really about getting a grasp on it all and realizing that I don't need to be on top of everything at all times. I can't let anything fall by the wayside, but I don't have to finish everything at once. That's something I struggle with now, though I think I am slowly improving. To be ready to manage my classroom will require practice and confidence on my part. I need to believe in my students and myself as an educator, as I believe that will create a self-fulfilling prophecy (I'm taking the Rafe Esquith approach.)

As someone else mentioned in an earlier blog, I would be lying if I didn't say I was at one point or another essentially afraid of everything that went along with teaching. However, I feel we will all be successful if we believe in ourselves as educators and realize that we are where we are for a reason, we didn't just "luck" our way into the teaching profession. We worked hard to be prepared to become teachers.