The Big Day, Part I

Today was the big day. Well, not really. Today was the first big day. The REAL big day comes next Tuesday, along with 17 adorable and scampy 6th graders (and, I learnt today, 22 adorable and scampy 5th graders). But today was pretty big in and of itself. It was a day of meetings, and some workshops, and more meetings and meetings. And a meeting or two. Somewhat exhausting (it didn’t help that last night I was too hyped up to fall asleep at a reasonable hour).

I arrived a little early for the 8:30 breakfast, and ran into Jo, my primary (general studies) mentor in the parking lot. She’s fantastic. We’ve started to have a running joke about our names – she’s Jo and I’m Joel – and that the kids will just have to say “Jo–” and someone will respond; it’ll be a bit hilarious for the kids, and confusing for us. Ha ha? Anyway, We had breakfast, which included meeting forty or so extremely friendly garrulous women (including myself, I can count the male faculty members on one hand). It was pretty overwhelming; I felt like a deer right before the car hits. I don’t do very well in large groups of new people, and so I grabbed a chocolate muffin (they were from Costco!) and sat with the other new staff members, and we chatted about not knowing anyone. Then began the day.

The entire staff had a small group discussion of Understood Betsy, the staff summer reading book, and then our groups created skits, drawings, poems, or songs – it was exactly like camp – about the content of our discussions. Then we did a workshop on the school’s mission statement; the school is undergoing their 6-year independent school reaccredidation and so reevaluating their mission. It was surprisingly interesting, and while I didn’t know that a lot about the character school and couldn’t contribute much (I did make one zingy comment, much to the welcome surprise of the Head of School), but it allowed me to get a better sense of how the faculty thinks about the school.

Then we lunch. Catered. Yum. And then the onslaught of meetings. Fifth/sixth grade meeting to work out scheduling. New staff meeting with the head of school. Fifth grade staff and school administration meeting with a set of parents about their student. Then fifth grade staff meeting about the kids for the year. It was a lot of meetings. Coming out of my ears. There’s been a lot of scheduling issues with my schedule: Delet has certain requirements, the school has certain needs, and the 5th and 6th grades have the most screwy schedule I can imagine, and I have certain vision of what I see my blossoming teacher role to be. Tomorrow, we haggle! We fuddle! We reconcile! Hours and hours of fun!

All and all, it was a really good first day. I feel like a real person now. I have burgeoning social responsibilities. I have a paycheck. I have somewhere to be from 8-5. And I'm tired and cranky in the evening.