It has been a long time....

When it has been so long since I have writing out my thoughts it is hard to know where to begin. So today I begin with an apology. I have so many loved ones that have encouraged me to keep this updated because they care about me and my life, and I have put this blog at the back burner for far to long. For that, I ask for your forgiveness and patience :)

It is hard to believe I am almost done with the third quarter of my first year of teaching. It is crazy to sit and think back on ALL of the changes and growth that has occurred in my classroom. In week one, I had a classroom of first graders that spent most days in tears or in fights trying to push back against all of the new difficult things I was throwing at them. I personally had NO idea what I was doing, and lived on prayer, reflection, and a lot of hard work. Today, my classroom is nowhere near perfect, but you will find students who have gained confidence, work together, and are actually READING. Many times when I get frustrated I have to stop and tell myself... "Julie, remember how you had half of class of students who could not read a word or write a word? " Now I have a classroom of readers, who work together and coach each other so they can leave first grade completely ready to be second grade readers. No words can describe how proud I am of the 20 students God gave me for this first year of teaching.

Since Christmas, I have helped one student get a much needed and well deserved IEP (Individual Education Plan), created a student who could not write a word into an actual writer who can write sentence, and helped a class who were filled with anger into a team that supports and encourages each other.

Yes, I still have students who can hardly read a book. I have first graders who shed tears over writing a sentence, but it is the small victories that I hold tightly in my grasp each day. While many teachers I talk to struggle each day to get themselves to school and teach each day in a hard urban classroom, I thank God that each morning when I see my students' smiles I know without a doubt I can make it each day. I don't work these crazy hours and push my body to the max just for me, I do it all for them, and they constantly pour out their love to me for it. Today made it all extra special as I was rewarded teacher of the month at DTA. It was an exciting honor, and I accept this with humility as I push on to make sure my first graders reach our class goal and their personal goals. I could not have done with without these kids, they inspire me and push me every day.

So I leave you with some of my favorite quotes this week. As a first grade teacher I hear MANY of them each day, and it is my new GOAL to make sure to get on my blog more often to put a smile on your face with some of the crazy things my kids say!

J: "I was thinking this weekend Ms. Vermeer, I wish you were my teacher."

Me: "Well J I am your teacher...."

J: "Yes, I know. I mean like my kindergarden teacher."

R: (While counting on his hundreds grid) "Ms. Vermeer! This is one of my two favorite things! Cartoon network and the number 49."

Days fly by...

I must start this post with an apology. It has been far too long since I have posted on my blog. The life of a first year teacher is a blur I decided. It is crazy how the weeks fly by.

Tonight as I sit on my amazing red couch, I am baffled by the fact that Monday starts my 6th week of teaching. I would like to say that my students are little angels and always listen to every thing I say, but sadly we are not there yet. We will get there though. Things are getting better every week. The students are learning that they can't get away with certain things with me, and we are jumping into more curriculum. I am learning as well. Every week I learn from mistakes and feel more comfortable in my new role as a classroom teacher.

While the last month has been a blur, the month ahead will fly by even faster. The next two weekends I will be leaving Kansas City for two weddings. Next weekend I will be hopping on a plane to Denver where I am lucky to watch two amazing people get married. I am SO excited to see my "family" from San Francisco and catch up with old friends.

The next weekend I have the honor of standing up for one of my best friends, Danni. I am excited to see all my closest friends from high school as well as my mom and dad for the day. God knows exactly when I need the comforts of home. It is always nice to have these moments planned to help me get through those rough days.

I hope that this post finds you all well. I hope that you have had the chance to slow down and see God working in your life. It is pretty humbling to stop and realize how awesome our God is.

Rollercoaster

Teaching is a rollercoaster.  There are so many twists and turns and ups and downs.  

I am an emotional wreck at times.

This job is harder than I ever imagined.  I think that I had this big dream that it would be different for me.  That my students would actually listen and inspire to be anything they can be.  That my students would become driven to all achieve amazing things in my classroom, and we would blow all of their test scores out of the water. 

Instead, I have students that cry, throw fits, flip tables, and yell all because they don't want to do a simple worksheet.  For most of the students, they are upset because they cannot do it.  They don't get it.  They cannot write, they cannot read, they cannot count...... you name it, they struggle with it.  So how do I help them?  How do we get past the fits and tears to actual learning? 

I have found there is no magic pill.  No matter what I do, tomorrow I will not have 19 students silent in their seats all excited to do math problems or write for me.  That is asking the impossible though.  I have to realize that learning is a process.  Trust is a process.  There will be no learning in my classroom until my students trust me.  

SO, tomorrow I will greet my students at the door, and do my very best to continue building trust.  I will encourage my students and push my students with the hope that someday along the road this year a light bulb will click and each student will finally believe that he/she really can learn.  

Till then, I will pray that God gives me the patience and courage to walk into school each day and help my students slowly reach their dreams.  

The Learning Vertical Line

In teaching there is no learning curve.  It is a straight up and down line.  Every single day I make big mistakes and learning even bigger lessons.  I now know never to give directions to first graders without starting my sentence saying, "In a minute, when I say go."  I also know that when I open up a classroom "store" with prizes, I need rules.... such as, how long you can look at the prizes, you cannot trade (all sales are FINAL), if you whine, cry, or complain you will not get to go to the classroom store next week.  These are just a few of the things I learned today- the first day of my third week of teaching.  (The 11th day of teaching my own class... if we were counting)

Teaching is hard.  The HARDEST thing I have ever done in my whole life.  

Teaching is exhausting.  I am tired ALL the time.

Teaching is overwhelming.  I have 17 students NEEDING me at all minutes of the day.

Teaching is frustrating.  How am I going to help get all my students on grade level, when I cannot hardly keep them from talking and arguing?  

Teaching is rewarding.  

No matter how bad of a day we have in our classroom, I always get hugs.  My students remind me with their smiles and excitement for learning that it is all worth it.  So when my alarm goes off at 5:30 AM and I step into school at 6:30 AM and don't leave some days till 6:30 PM and finally finish planning for school at 10 PM before I put my head down, I have to push aside the feelings of exhaustion and being completely overwhelmed and remember why I wanted to do this in the first place.  

These students deserve the best education around.  I signed up for Teach for America, and I am taking masters classes two nights a week, so I can be the best educator I can be for my students.  

Don't get me wrong.  I still have really rough days where I want to go home and cry, or find a new profession, but it is my hope and prayer that as the weeks go on we have FAR more good days than bad, and that my students learn to count, add, subtract, read, and write just like every other first grader across America.  

We will get there.  I know we will.  

It has begun...

Wow.

I could have never been prepared for my first day of school.  1st graders are young, vibrant, happy, sad, wiggly, loud, quiet, excited, scared and everything in between.  

I feel that one teacher at my school said it best, the first weeks of teaching does not have a learning curve, it is a straight, vertical line.  I learn every single second of every single day.  Usually it is by mistakes, but that is how I learn best.  I have been constantly reflecting and changing my style and my approach so I can create a positive atmosphere in my classroom where my students trust each other and myself so that we can jump into learning and they can get that much closer to achieving their dreams. 

This week has been a rollercoaster of emotions.  I love my students already, I love their little quirks.  I love how one student can literally be wiggling and giggling with excitement and the next moment bawling on the floor.  (He is quite in tune with his emotions).  I love how one 6 year old talks to me like she is 34.  I even love my poor angry little boy who is not afraid to tell anyone how it is.  Yet, at the same time, I wake up in the morning tired, and I cannot help but think that I could have chosen another route... ANY other route in life, but I chose this.  I chose to not only be a teacher, but to teach urban children.  I chose to put myself on a career path that has an intense urgency each and every day.  The achievement gap in our country is daunting, and every single minute, of every single day is vital to abolishing it.  This is what I tell myself when it takes an hour to have my students get in line and go into the hallway to use the bathroom.  This is what I told myself the 9 times they tried to get out of their seats correctly and get in line so they could leave my room to use the bathroom.  This is what I tell myself each and every time I say, "To be responsible means to raise your hand and receive permission before you speak."  or "To be safe means to remain your seat until you have permission to get up."  ( all 102 times a day-- at least it has to be pretty darn close to that amount!)  

This is my life.  This will be my life for the next 200 days of school.  This is what I chose to get myself into.  So when I get up in the morning and ask myself "why" I have to simply reply "for the kids."   For every time I want to cry because I don't know how I will make it through the year, I get about 16 hugs.  The hugs make it worth it in themselves.  

Right now I have one day left in my first week of teaching my very own class.  It was not an easy week in anyway, but I can honestly say I have already seen growth in my students, and I know we will get there.  

Thank you so much for your support and prayers.  They are desperately needed for those low moments.   (but of course I still cherish them in the good moments too!)

Pray for peace in my students, pray that God might use me to impact their lives in a positive way.  Pray that my students excel in ways I could have never even hoped for.  Pray that I have the energy and excitement to keep up with them!

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.  

Settling in.

So it has officially been over a week since my father and I skillfully packed up a mini van and my lovely tracer to move down to Kansas City.  It feels like a lot has happened since then, yet at the same time I am only on the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my actual job and settling in.  All week I have had chances to get into my classroom and start setting things up little by little.  I love to get a little creative, so my classroom theme this year is "Wild about Learning."  I have a lot of fun jungle things that tie into this.  I have this huge square post in the side of my room that I turned into a tree that will be our "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" tree that our letters and sounds will move up.  I even have a song and dance to go with it after we have mastered the different blends... gotta keep things light and interesting :)  

Tomorrow, bright and early, I start new teacher orientation at Derrick Thomas Academy (DTA).  I am excited to meet everyone and learn more about my school.  I feel like a lot of questions will be answered and my worries will be pushed aside once I have a better feel for the expectations and curriculum at the school.  There is just far too much to take in right now, so I will stick with taking one day at a time.

In 5 days I will be driving back up to Iowa to be in one of my best friend Mandy's wedding.  I am so excited to share this day with her and Chad and see all of my friends again. Sadly, it will be a VERY short trip, because school starts Monday, August 15th and we have a parent open house on Sunday, August 14th.  It will be a full and crazy week, but I will live by the motto that God never gives me more than I can handle! 

A lot of things are a blur to me right now, but there are a couple things I know for sure...

God brought me here to KC to work with 1st graders for a reason.

There is no way I will be able to do this on my own. 

I am about to start one of the biggest adventures of my life and I am filled with terror, excitement, joy, worry, and hope all at the same time.  

God has a plan, and I am doing my very best to humbly follow it.  

My God is a pretty awesome God.  

And on that note, I will leave you...