As I have bumbled my way through this new experience of teaching 5-14 year olds I have felt almost like I'm starting over in many ways.
Ok, not completely. I remember my first year of teaching, driving to work every morning, fighting the urge to keep driving past the school where I taught, across the country, and home to California. The only thing that got me through each day was knowing that I could change my career at the end of the school year.
For some reason I decided not to change careers at the end of that school year. Maybe it was the teachers that I worked with who inspired me. Maybe those few students who made the hardest days bearable just by a smile or a note or telling me that Spanish was their favorite class.
And just like everyone promised, every year got better. I think it has to do partially with the fact that my students kept getting younger and younger. But also with the fact that I have really felt like I have been lead to the right place at the right time.
I loved the people I worked with at my first school. When the enrollment went down and I was forced to move schools I was not prepared to get a position at one of the most incredible schools. Ever. When I decided I needed to move to California one of the most difficult things for me to leave was my job. I had no idea that I would have the opportunity to teach in a setting I had dreamt about for years. Not only would I get to have complete autonomy over the curriculum and schedule, I would get to teach elementary age kids AND middle schoolers... my favorite age groups! AND it would be at a Montessori school.
So I went from teaching the same thing five times a day in a public school setting to teaching seven different levels of Spanish to children between the ages of 5 and 14 at a private international school. I love that I sit in my office and hear sounds of children playing all day. I love that throughout the day I have kids coming in to talk or play or draw pictures for me. I even love that my students call me Melissa instead of Srta. Della Gatta. I love that I can do fun projects and field trips and songs and games without other teachers getting mad or jealous. I love that I don't give letter grades or standardized tests. I love that I have so many opportunities to work individually with my students. I love that my students are not confined to desks and have freedom and responsibility.
I wish I could post pictures of my middle schoolers today, reading to their five year old 'buddies' the bilingual books they made. A few months ago they started making books for children in Spanish speaking countries. The books teach children's rhymes and songs, animals, the alphabet, stories, food etc. They are all written in both Spanish and English, colored, laminated, and bound. They will be sent to kids who don't have access to very many materials, particularly to children's books.
But before we send them, the middle schoolers read their books to the kindergartners. They were AMAZING with the little kids. They were so good at teaching them, improvising... and the kindergarteners looked up to them so much. They loved it.
I have A LOT to learn. I'm still trying to figure out how to teach all these different levels, how to differentiate for all the levels within each class, how to develop a curriculum, how to make it interesting and fun but challenging at the same time... classroom management (which happens to be different in every one of the 11 classrooms I teach). But along the way I have these little moments of success when I see how my efforts make a difference... even in a small way.
