It is funny how somethings happen; when you are least expecting it you find yourself in the middle of spaghetti junction and have no idea what to do with yourself from there – which way to go?
It is in one of those such puzzles that I find myself at present, but literally just now I have possibly unravelled some of the thoughts that have been going round and round in my head like they were in a washing machine on super fast spin mode.
After returning from my fortnightly Wednesday evening meet up, I had a few things to think over about what I want to do. It was mentioned to me tonight that I need to decide what it is I actually want to do and not down to what I thought I should be doing. At first I was frustrated with the conversation because I keep saying that I don’t know what it is I should be doing with my life, I have not got a 5 or 10 year plan mapped out and have never understood how people always just seem to know what it is they want to do with their lives.
It wasn’t until I was sitting in the car on the way home when my friend said
“Well what is it that you want to be doing 10 years from now?”
“Hopefully have a home of my own, a partner and maybe a family of my own” It all just came tumbling out of my mouth.
“I would also like to live and work in America, teaching in Elementary school” (that’s Primary school here in the UK)
“Well there you go then, thats what you want so send a thought out to the universe telling them that!”
Ok so maybe I do know what I want, it’s possibly just the steps to getting there. Maybe it’s because I don’t know if moving to America will be an achievable goal, I haven’t even been there before so why this idea of moving over there is even in my head I have no idea! But it is and it keeps being thought about every time I go on Pinterest or look at blogs. In my home feed on Pinterest there is a combination of Elementary school ideas, home organisation ideas, a selection of food images, and the most amazing collection of room ideas you could ask for – all of which originate the other side of the pond! Perhaps there is the odd one or two pins that have ideas from the UK but the majority of my pins that I’ve saved are definitely coming from America! There are also far more and useful blogs written by teachers in America than I have found UK ones (although maybe I just haven’t found them?).
It is hardly a surprise to me that what I found after finding one such pin was a link to the TPT website (Teachers Pay Teachers) and on this particular pin it said to check out the creators blog. I found the link on her TPT shop page and opened it in Safari (I was on my iPad). I scrolled down and found this article about who inspires us. I started reading it and it was speaking to me, saying exactly what I had been feeling. Aside from the fact that I have never seen Top Gun and feel like I should probably locate a copy and watch it ASAP, I felt exactly what Michelle was describing, it was as if she was inside my head and getting all of the words and feelings out for me.
She is right, you do need something to bring you back from the doom and gloom and remind you why you trained to teach in the first place. I know I am meant to be a teacher I have just had a few square-peg-round-hole issues thus far but I shouldn’t give up!
Add to this square peg situation the fact that I seem to have picked up the completely wrong round hole as well and it becomes even more obvious why I am currently not teaching. By this I mean that although I am trained to teach Secondary (11-18 year olds) I should have trained to teach Primary!
After all, I am also a fully qualified Beaver Scout Leader as part of The Scout Association (Beaver Scouts are the youngest section and are between 6 and 8 years old)! Whenever I have told anyone I’m a teacher in the past they have assumed I am a Primary teacher and are somewhat surprised (and think I’m crazy) when they find out I teach IT at secondary school!
Signs other than Pinterest pins etc. that have been waving their arms in front of my oblivious eyes have been as follows:
Craving planning things – I have a Filofax that I use to write down my shifts at work in, and any appointments or such like but that is all that I have been using it for this past year and a bit. I want to deck it out properly with my planning pages (that I spent time creating with some help!!!) and get using them (as I didn’t really get to use them before getting my job at the pub). I also want to create some more pages so that I can use them to record grades and other details like I would have in a teacher’s binder that I have been supplied with in the past. I have never really used them all as they were set out because they were never set out appropriately for me. Although the last one I had before I created my own pages I did use more as it was intended for the planning pages at least and the only reason I managed to use those pages then was because I had the loose leaf A4 planner that goes into a ring binder.
I actually WANT to plan some lessons/schemes of work and make all the resources for the term.
The overwhelming desire to go shopping for all the stationery items for the new term (not that I really need any new stationery – even if I was teaching this year – as I have oodles of the stuff everywhere!).
I really want to get some more ink for my fountain pen, some boxes and files etc. to set up a mega organised classroom and labels so that I can label the new pots with sharp pencils on one and dull pencils on the other and to create a wall display with classroom helper jobs for the week and fun displays of the things we are learning about this term.
Still wanting to purchase an Organising Utility Tote from thirtyonegifts.com and a lightweight hanging file system to go in it so I too can have one of these pretty things that I found on my many sessions on Pinterest!!!
I miss the students, I miss the planning, I don’t miss the stress or the lurgies or the politics/BS (although the stress and politics are usually there in most jobs) but I think it is time that I make my way back to the classroom, albeit a Primary classroom rather than a computer room this time!
I am going to start by volunteering for a few days a week if I can in a local school or two, to get the feel of things again and also to gain some more experience before jumping in at the deep end. This does mean that potentially I may be working at the pub for another long stretch of time but it should also mean that I can apply for Primary Teaching jobs that start this time next year (or sooner if something comes up).
There’s a date to mark in my Filofax! September 2015, well August 2015 really as I will want to get into my school and classroom to prepare over the summer!
Between now and then, apart from classroom time, I am hoping to gather a collection of ideas and suggestions together to help me make the transition, not only back into the classroom easier, but also the transition from secondary to primary easier as well. I am going to try and document my progress on here along the way, that way I will have a collection of ideas and links on hand no matter where I am as long as I have access to the Internet!
Sx
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