My first year as a teacher began in January of 2020.
Yep. The year of the Covid pandemic.
I have to say, it was a different experience than what I expected. I thought I would be making lesson plans and teaching a classroom full of smiling faces each day, encouraging students to pull beloved books from my fully stocked bookcase, asking for their homework to be turned in to my beautifully labeled tray...
What I did not expect:
- Kids coming to class in their pajamas
- Siblings yelling into microphones during zoom
- Meeting countless pets
- Neverending emails from student work submissions....
And so much more.
So many lovely things I had to learn and adjust to during Covid, and yet the experience brought me assurance. I knew that I was meant to be in a classroom, working face to face with students. I knew from the experience that I really, really wasn't called to teach online.
My first year I got to play around a lot more with online educational platforms and tools that I may have never otherwise looked at. It's how I first discovered TeachersPayTeachers. God bless you TeachersPayTeachers.
And even through all of the craziness of the pandemic, I was able to grow. I figured out what works, and what doesn't. And I think part of bettering yourself as a teacher is learning what works for you and your teaching style, so I would say that first year was a messy success.
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