Musings of a First Year Ag Teacher

You've all been there. You all know what I'm going through. Some of you even warned me, and yet here I am... the n00b. Now some of you may know this widely popular term from the world of online gaming (and I'm not talking about internet checkers), but just to cover my bases, a "n00b" is someone who is new to something. It started out as the more familiar term "newbie" but leave it to a bunch of online gamers who communicate via keyboard to shorten and simplify the spelling to n00b. The double zeros in the center just top it off to make sure it is fully intergrated into keyboard-speak since for some reason if you type to someone in an online game, you must include at lease one number in each sentence. So now that I've fully explained n00b (and you're thinking, "yeah, thanks, get on with it") I will now begin to refresh your memories on what being a first year teacher was like. Look at it as more of a reminder as to why you forgot.

First of all, you don't know anything! No one tells you anything! In fact, I wonder if there isn't a certain joy in leaving the n00b out. Of course, I exclude the CTE department in this and Donna Lopez, my mentor, but yeah, you're thrown into the ocean with basic swimming skills, but no life vest. After slaving away on my lesson plans to make sure I was ready before the students came (I planned my lessons 3 weeks ahead at a time) I ended my frist day of class realizing that I was going to have to do it all over again. It's hard enough having to plan for 3 different grade levels but now as I've gotten to learn my students and what they're capable of I'm realizing I have to do more like 4 different ones. Middle school is tough, don't let anyone convince you otherwise.

I don't want this to sound negative though. I've been through a lot of jobs in my short life (I'm a glutton for work) and for the first time I feel like I'm where I belong, teaching. I've had a lot of people tell me I'd be great at it, and though I'm not sure if I'm great at it, I do love it. My first day made me cry because I was so overwhelmed, my second day exhausted me, but by the third students began to smile at me, and by the second week I have students asking me to leave a video of me teaching when I was absent for a workshop. Each week I face new challenges and by the end of it, I look back and see how to do something better and I also feel pretty darn good. I don't get tired and achey anymore from walking on concrete floors all day and my students have developed a respect for me that always brings a smile to my face. I figure I must be doing something right when everyday I'm asked "What are we gonna do today, Miss. Smith?!"

Sure there are things I'm still having to figure out and I'm hoping by the end of the semester I'll finally have some assemblance of a full set of lesson plans but I'm hanging in there and I have less and less idle students, a much cleaner and more organized greenhouse and next we're hitting the nature trail and getting that cleaned up. We're having a blast and making great strides over here and I'm over all enjoying every minute of being a n00b.