These past few weeks have made me eternally grateful for a number of things.
***Forewarning: this post may be a bit emotional, but I consider myself an emotional person and I try to express my feelings through my writing. If you need to read my disclaimer, you can do so on my Meet the Newbie page.
One
That I have a supportive, stable family that always has my best interest in mind. I could drop my job, move across the country, and my family would STILL lend a helping hand and a patient ear.
It's no secret that my students have their fair share of difficulties. Recently I learned that one of my students eats dinner every night at our city's soup kitchen. While I'm bundled up with my dog and my homemade meal, my student and their family are trekking their way to the soup kitchen just for a hot meal. Cue all the tears! Throughout my education courses in undergrad, my professors constantly reminded us of progress monitoring, the referral process, RTI, writing goals, and different types of assessments. Not once was I warned of the heartache this profession carries.
Two
Now that I've dried my tears (again), let's move on to something a little lighter. I'm also grateful for my co-workers. I have never met more committed, caring, and tough adults. Each staff member at our school has a unique characteristic about them and they all have a common passion: helping children. At the end of a tough day, sometimes I sit at my desk, eat a piece of chocolate (of course), and just think of how incredible my co-workers are. Not only are they great at school, but I was invited to my first-ever cookie exchange...and it's at my co-worker's house! She'll be hosting me and about 10 other staff members from our school next week for a little get together at her house. And I can't wait!
Three
New relationships. Not only romantic relationships, but relationships that have also been built between fellow teachers and aides at my school and new members of my book club. Recently I've had a new relationship in my life that just brings me so much happiness. I have every reason to be grateful for these various new relationships.
Here's just a little preview of where my daily allotment of happiness has been lately :) #noshame
Four
What I call "little pockets of communities." Lately I've just been feeling extremely grateful for these little groups of humans. From my book club, to my college friends, my "tried and true" friends, and my new TPT friends! A couple weeks ago I attended my very first TPT Meet Up! Let's just say that I'm hooked. I'll be attending another TPT Meet Up event in the spring of next year. Big announcement coming soon...ish...sometime before spring.
Five
My students. Oh I could just love them up. Each day they make me so proud. They've been making such progress in their academic and behavioral goals that sometimes I just can't contain it. I love the "little pocket of community" that I have in my classroom.
Just a new teacher just feeling grateful, that's all!
Exact representation of me right now
