Tomorrow = My FIRST first day of teaching first grade...

It is hard to begin to put all of my emotions into words right now.  I am incredibly excited to FINALLY have my own class and teach the students I have been diligently preparing for these past two weeks.  At the same time, my excitement is also escorted by fear, worry, wonder, and an incredibly amount of humility.  

For the past 4 years I have wanted to be a teacher for urban students.  I have wanted to be part of an amazing movement in this country where all students are given the quality education they deserve.  Where the sky is the limit and students are reaching the high expectations placed on them by amazing educators.  Where every student is not seen in a negative light, but instead seen by what their futures hold.  That was me, that was the educator I wanted/want to be.  But for some crazy reason, the past two weeks of meetings, prepping, and preparing my classroom I forgot about all of that.  The humanity I so desperately wanted to bring to my students suddenly disappeared.  

Today, it hit me that instead of building my future students up in my mind I was dehumanizing them.  I was thinking of the millions of procedures I would do to make sure my students were "perfect."  I was taking the ever-present smile off of my face, and ready to "scare" my new students into being good.  

That is not me.  

I never want to be that person. 

I woke up this morning tired from a late night drive from Pella to KC (I was blessed to be part of one of my best friend's weddings... Congrats Mandy and Chad!!!)  I woke up because I knew that somehow in the last couple of months of my life I pushed God to the corner and was trying to run things on my own.  I realized driving home last night that I would not even last one day in the classroom if I tried that.  So today, after a lot of reflecting and journaling I decided I had to strip away all of the extra negativity I had suddenly developed and get back to the whole reason why I wanted to teach in the first place: the students.  

Tomorrow, when my students walk up to the door, I am going to give them the biggest smile and point out all of the wonderful things they are doing already as "sophisticated 1st graders."  I am going to be serious with them and make sure they know I have super high expectations for them.  Some of my students coming in do not even have letter-name recognition.  When they leave my class, they are going to be reading books and writing letters.  We have a lot head of us, and I am going to push my students to be the best first graders in our school, but I am going to let them know along the way how much I love them and how proud of them I am.  

That is the way it should be.