Beginning of School

Hi there everyone!

There's so much I could say about school starting that I don't even know where to begin. Overall, it went pretty well. Of course, there are things I wish I had done differently (mostly in the classroom management/ discipline category), but I think it'll all work out okay. Now, I'm feeling overwhelmed and mostly exhausted. Teaching is a lot more work than you realize as a student. All the things I start working on usually end up taking three times as long as I think they will, but I guess better time management will come with time.

I'm currently teaching 6th, 7th and 8th grade math, and high school physics. I will probably be adding middle school music once a week. The kids in my classes are mostly pretty good, but as in any class, there are the few that are talkative or hard to handle. But I think I will be able to keep control of the class.
I didn't expect the high schoolers to be easier than the middle schoolers. I thought I would be able to treat the middle schoolers more like adults than I can - they're more immature than I remember middle schoolers being. But the high schoolers are easy. They're almost too quiet. Hopefully, when things get going and I can get them up and moving around the room doing experiments, they'll liven up.

The first two days were only half days of school, so I only had each class for 25-30 mins rather than 45 mins. I'm a bit worried since I found that exhausting, but, I'll have more to do when the actual subject gets going.

I have a wide range of skills of students in my middle school classes, so adapting the lessons for each of them will be a challenge. I think I have at least three different levels of students in each class. There are some that are really bright and finish everything really quickly - I know I'll need extra work for them to do. On the flip side, there are a few that will need a lot of attention just to get through. I hope that I pick up the 'art of teaching' quickly, because these kids need me to.

Today, there was a school-wide field trip to a fancy pool/ resort south of Prishtina. It was mostly the middle schoolers that went along. It turned out to be a rather relaxing day, when I wasn't too hot to function. I enjoyed the lazy river and a short nap on a lounge chair. :)

I'm hoping to get some rest this weekend, but its looking like it will be very busy. I have a lot of work to do for school and will probably be there most of the weekend. I wonder if my teachers always did this and I just had no idea....