The Emergency Room

Well it seems I've kind of abandoned my teaching blog. I apologize - it seems keeping up with it is the last thing on my mind after work sometimes. I have started working at my new job and am so excited about the year ahead of us in 3rd grade.

Moving schools was such a great move for me professionally. I'm able to teach in a style that I feel is best practice. My school day is shorter so I have more time to plan my lessons after school and it doesn't cut into my personal life as much. I can wear nice clothes to work without them being ruined and I'm generally just in a better mood. With all of this being said, there are moments where I feel a little guilty.

On the last day of school last year, we had a staff meeting after the kids went home as kind of a "summer send-off." All of the administration spoke and our curriculum supervisor said something along the lines of...

If you were a doctor you could choose to work in a private practice where you could go home early and have a flexible schedule. Where you didn't have to handle life or death situations every single day and where you could have dinner with your family. Or you could work in the emergency room. The emergency room where you're always on call, where you never get a moment to sit down, where the stress level is high, and where you have to make life or death decisions every day. But you would be making the biggest difference and helping the people who need it most. By working here, you are working in the emergency room.

Which is true. In my school last year, I was working in a school where I was really needed. The kids needed good role models and dedicated teachers. Which felt good, but also took a lot out of me.

So at moments, I feel guilty for where I am right now. But at the same time, I feel like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. My school now reminds me so much of the school where I worked immediately after I graduated in South Carolina and was so happy. Its a good fit and the kids still need me. They need me to be a good example too and they need my passion for teaching and my love for trying new, best practice approaches. And I feel pretty fortunate to have a job that several hundred other teachers applied for. It is going to be the best year this year at my new school but I can't help saying a prayer for the kids and my former coworkers in "the emergency room" that they have the best year, too.