The Adventures of a First Year Middle School Teacher

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The first day of school for the teachers required that they stay all eight hours in trainings and meetings. Each one of those providing Sandra with many papers that she had no idea how to keep up with. The faculty meeting felt a bit like to church to her. They opened the meeting with a prayer and no one batted an eye. Sandra had not expected this; not after learning that teachers could not talk about religion with or to the kids. She did not mind it as she attended church as well. Yet, it was a pleasant surprise to see that the people she worked with were of similar ideas.

After the prayer, the principal went over all the new things for the year. Some yearly items such as the self evaluations that the new employee went over. He went over several of the trainings she had to complete such as the Abuse training, the Suicide Prevention training, Seizure Safe at School and standard precautions training.

He asked the nurse to make her announcement and she asked each and everyone of the teachers meet her in the lunchroom for the Anaphylaxis and Diabetes trainings. There were packets of papers for each training. Some of them had to be filled out and signed and others were to keep.

Once the nurse had completed her announcement, the principal went over some more items such as state testing dates and the papers they had to send home with the students. Sandra was feeling more than overwhelmed with the amount of papers that she was given and wondered if she would be able to keep up with them at all. She took the stack of papers to send with the students but tried not think of the weight of the responsibility that came with each of one of those pieces of paper.

When the meeting finished, Sandra walked quietly without talking to anyone. She could not think much. Each new piece of information filled her mind with anxieties that she was not ready to deal with at the moment and decided that she would tackle each item at a time and prioritize them according to dates.

She headed towards her classroom to leave all the papers on her desk and then walked on to the lunchroom. Several teachers were lined up to sign the papers that proved they had attended the meeting. The line was long, so Sandra decided on signing it as she left the meeting.

As she looked for a place to seat, she identified Bailey and her husband Ryan and sat down beside them as they were the only people she knew. The nurse went over all the information of each training and handed every teacher a hand out for them to keep and to refer to throughout the year.

Sandra walked out along with Bailey and Ryan who were headed in the opposite direction and came upon the principal who needed to speak to her.

- "Mrs. Monteverde, I need to speak with you for just a moment." He spoke softly as to not intimidate and let her know everything was fine.

- " That's fine." She said stepping beside him.

- "I wanted to let you know that I am assigning you a mentor, and that mentor is Mrs. Stanley who teaches eighth grade. She should be coming out soon." They waited a few seconds until Mrs. Stanley walked out from the lunchroom. Mr. Delaney greeted her and introduced them to one another.

- "  Nice to meet you. You may call me Maddie. I am available during sixth period which is my planning or during any other time you may like. You can come watch me anytime as well." Sandra was wondering when she would really be able to plan with her or talk to her at all since they did not have the same planning period, and because she could not go to her sixth period because she had a class during that time.

Sandra walked along side Maddie until she reached her classroom she attempted to categorize and organize the papers she had just been handed and the ones that laid on her desk. After a while of agonizing as to how to arrange them, she took the packets of information and placed them inside a folder; the papers she needed to sign inside a file holder on her desk. As for the papers she needed to copy and send home with the students, she left those on the desk to make copies of them before the day ended.