So I first made this blog for an elementary writing course I took at UGA. My teacher wanted to show us different ways we could incorporate technology into our classrooms. She would have us write a blog post once a week after we had read the assigned readings. I have kept the blog and now at this point of my life I want to use it for personal use.
My life is going through so many changes right now. Every aspect of my life is changing, for the good and for the bad, and I want to document it so that I can look back in the future. Right now I am in a whirlwind of emotions and I can not seem to calm myself down. After getting off the phone with my dad the other day he advised me to keep a journal or record how I'm feeling right now. To both help me put my feelings on paper and to have and look back on and realize how silly I have been for my worries. My dad is an awesome person to talk to. He can always calm me down and always has me look at the positive aspects of the situation and myself to make me see that things aren't so bad off. He truely is the best man I have ever met.
For most of you reading this you already know that I struggle with a bad case of the "worries" I am the type that always thinks something will go wrong or something will not work out. I try to be positive about everything in life but then I always have my worries in the back of my head that keep holding me back. As a child I really really struggled with this. While it has gotten better and I have overcome a lot of fears I feel like it still lingers on with me. To think of how much my life has changed in the past year, two years, and even four is just so crazy to fathom. I have grown so much as a person especially over this past year. I have allowed myself to be independent and learn that I do not need someone to make myself happy. I need to be happy with myself and trust in myself.
Now after all that background info....the reason I am starting to blog is to track my experiences as a student teacher. My anxiety is raging thinking about tomorrow being the start of my last semester of my undergrad and the beginning of my student teaching. I have an awesome mentor teacher and am so so thankful for her. She taught me so much last semester and I know she will do just the same for me this semester. She always has my best interest at heart and shows me how to do things rather then telling me. She always gives constructive criticism on my lessons and shows me ways I can improve or expand on them. Needless to say though I am so scared. Scared I wont be a good teacher. Scared I will not be able to plan my lessons daily. Scared that I will not know how to keep my classroom orderly. Scared that I will not be able to do things on my own without the help of someone else. I want the best for every child and it just scares me that I hold and am responsible for a portion of their lives. I know so many people in which their teacher made the impact on how they felt about schooling. I do not want to be the teacher that the other teachers talk about and look down on.
I just feel like I am so young and not old enough to have a "big girl job" It is crazy to think that a year from now I will have my own classroom and my own set of children. I will be looking over my class list and they will know me as Ms. Kruger and not just some 23 year old that is scared to death of what the next year will look like. I have attended a top university in the state and my teachers have done a great job at providing me with a quality education and giving me real life examples of things that can be done in the classroom. I have excelled in my classes and will graduate with honors but yet I just still do not feel prepared. I still question myself on how I will be as an educator. I have wanted to be a teacher for as long as I can remember. It was never a question of what I wanted to be. I have always known hands down that I wanted to be a teacher and that I would be a teacher. But now its passed all of the "What do you want to be when you grow up." I am grown up now and I am here right in front of my door. Now I just need to grasp reality and open that door.
I am hoping after my student teaching process I will feel better and more relaxed on what my life will look like in the next 6 months. Maybe being in the classroom everyday as opposed to two days a week will help me gain more confidence in myself. It's just so crazy to think that my days as a "child" are over. No more little girl, I will soon become an adult with a good job and a house to call a home. I have always just put so much stress on myself to do well and to only do the best that I just do not want to fail at this. The one thing that I have wanted for so long.
Children mean the world to me and I am so excited to build new realtionships with them this semester. I have met so many incredible children along my journey through college being in different classrooms. Each child is special and I want to be the one that helps show them just how special they are.
I'm sorry for rambling on. I promise not all my blogs will be this long. I just wanted to get all my thoughts down and try to sort out some of the jumble going on upstairs in my head. I hope that this blog will be valuable to me to show myself in 6 months that I am just being crazy and that everything will be ok.
So here goes nothing... Tomorrow morning at 7:15 all my new 5th graders will come into the classroom with smiling faces excited to start their last year in elementary school and I will be prepared with my worries aside so I can give them the best of me that I can. I need to remember that these kidos are probably just as nervous and scared as I am. But it is my job to help them feel calm and safe in the classroom.
Good night everyone :) Hopefully I will fall asleep quick and my nerves wont keep me up any longer!
