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I am not in their situation but I tend to forget a lot of the little things we used to stress out as new teachers. Parent emails, grades, tests, behaviors and now all those are explained in one sentence. I have to understand how to formulate a email to this new person. I have to explain how our grade book is set up. I feel the explaining of the info is the best way mentor but to lead is different. I have not worked with a young teacher as right out of college lately, but I am going to have to work with a 5 years of teaching experience person this year. I feel I am confused on if I am a leader or a mentor? I find them very different in my teaching at the middle school. We have people selected at mentors, but this is a forced thing. If you are new to the building you get a mentor. I will have to think about this more, I like to think of it as a leadership role. Like on committees, or in department meetings and so on.

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I can't tell you the impact I have had, I usually gravitate to the special education students. I really like the kids in the autism room or the emotional behavior room. I feel they like Science and need to be given room to explore and answer questions, but they also need structure. I started to find ways to help these students and it really helped with my at risk students. I can just relate to these students for some reason. They are disadvantaged but don't need pity, they need to get some socializing and find something of interest to them. I hope my demeanor, structure, and feeling welcome helps them get the most out of their day!

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I think it was 4 or 5 years into once I knew I had evidence of success. I ran into a few of my former students in the grocery store. They knew it was me but didn't know 100 percent. I said hi and then they said "I bet you don't remember me" but I did. I remember almost all my kids names if I had them in class. I am constantly running into these kids. I asked what they remember about 6th grade Science and all said I think we did that rocket launch in your class. O man they only remembered a 2 week lesson in 6th grade. I taught them something but not really sure what. That had the biggest effect on me, they don't remember much about my class but what they do remember is how they were treated in my class. So I quickly realized the curriculum is not the number one, it is the treatment of the individuals kids remember. I am getting to the point of now not remembering all my students. I consult a year book from time to time to keep my mind fresh.

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I feel this reflection gave me some new words of wisdom to use as a mentor. It is so important for me to remind others that their hardest students will teach them the most rewarding lessons. Those students need lots of patience, guidance, and perseverance. Many teachers need to be reminded of this in the heat of the school year when things may become stressful.

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Each of the years I have taught I feel there are students who have a profound impact on me. The ones who have overall seem to be the students who face adversity in their home lives, yet come to school and are still motivated to learn. There have been students who have little to no support at home or anyone to give them drive. They are self-motivated at such a young age, yet have the ability to see themselves making something out of their future. Those are the students I am always most amazed by.

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Honestly, the earliest and biggest success I remember is when one of my first graders came into my class during my first year of teaching and learned to read for the first time. He came into the year knowing zero letters, sounds, nothing. What helped is he was eager to learn and persisted despite a tough home life. The day he read a book all by himself for the first time was one of my favorite teaching moments yet. Just as he has perseverance, so did I. I think the talent I acted on was never giving up on this little guy and always believed he could do it.

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My first year of teaching was something straight out of a soap opera. I could go on and on about the difficult lessons learned right off of the bat that year. I was hired as a first grade teacher and given a tiny classroom that was usually used as a flex room. The space was not sufficient for first grade and I was down in the basement, away from the rest of the grade level. Right off of the bat, many parents were upset to see this set up for their child. I can't say I entirely blamed them but I had no choice but to make the best of it. In a tiny class of only 17 students, 9 of my students were special education students with a large variety of needs. This brought on many challenges for this brand new teacher. Setting that aside, one of my students lost his mom to a car accident during the first week of school. That fall another one of my students was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer. There were SO many challenges that I was on the brink of being an emotional wreck that entire year. Thankfully, the staff I worked with were exceptional, outstanding, and supportive people I could count on. My coworkers were the reason I made it through that year. I heard many times that if I could survive that year, I would be set for my career. What was an emotional roller coaster that year turned me into the teacher I am today. My first year motivated me simply because I was shown how many little ones out their deeply need a role model and a support system in their lives.

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Simply put, I think I was raised by amazing parents who taught me to have strong morals, a hard work ethic, duty to serve your community, and a compassionate heart. I think all of these traits help me to want to serve and help others. Education has always been an extremely large part of my family's life (even though I am the only teacher in my family), but my dad and grandpa served on school boards. They always preached the importance of education. That is all I know!

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What do I have to offer students, I feel that I have always been able to talk to a wide range of people.  I had a large group of people in High School that knew me, and I could relate to all the groups of people.  My college experience was a little of the same, played football and was the only one of two on the team that went into education.  My life experiences led me to think I have more to offer than most.  I lived in Bemidji, Mn for the whole summer, played baseball and basketball up there.  I really didn't know any of these kids, but learned to make friends, again a core value of mine.  The summers in Bemidji really helped me my first year of teaching, it was like I was 13 again, trying to make new friends.  I also spent 2 -3 weeks in the fields at my Grandpa's farm for the summer harvest.  I would drive tractors and plow the fields.  So in student teaching I felt I could rely on my life experiences to help these kids through their middle school lives.  I quickly understood middle school kids really don't care about who you are, they care about how you react to situations.  I feel now I can give students structure, true structure so I don't even have to give directions.  I can also give the students a place to voice their opinions, I will rarely say "no" or your are wrong in my classroom.  I always give thanks for the response and redirect the answer.  I found the biggest problem with kids answering questions in front of the class is if they feel any discomfort they will never raise their hand again.  I have many sayings on my wall, I want to teach about life through Science.  One of my quotes I use weekly is "Act calm, feel excited"  if you have every worked in a middle school the normal is a not normal week.  There is always some dress up days, homeroom activities, picture day, speakers, so I tell the kids, we are in Science now so lets act calm, but fell excited for homecoming at 7:00 p.m.  Another quote is "don't mow the wrong lawn"  meaning don't work for hours on homework, blame the teacher, and get frustrated with your parents.  If you mow the wrong lawn for your business what do you have to do?  The kids then understand, o, I have to put in the extra time mowing the right lawn, because I didn't understand or ask the correct questions to the assignments.  So I offer some real life mental pictures to get the students to start to be mindful themselves!

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My first year of teaching was a great year looking back, once I settled a month in. It took me a month to understand the procedures, curriculum, schedule, people, and finally the kids of our school. I think my desire was and still is to reach students academically, socially, or emphatically because my needs were not met at my own home. I really wanted to be that teacher that made kids think differently about people and how much a person can learn from another person. I know without teachers and coaches in my life, I would have really taken a different path. I just wasn't that close or I didn't feel my family was really community orientated. I choose to study the teaching profession based on a chemistry class I had my junior year in high school. So, I feel teachers have really shaped or guided me to get to the place I am today! Back to the fist year of teaching, I wanted to implement everything, but nothing but notes seemed to make sense to me. I really had a difficult time seeing the big teaching picture, until I started to create habit in my classroom. Another motivation for me was to always blame myself for a lot of the students questions, or miscommunication. This made it a lot easier to change my classroom because I was constantly learning from the kids! So in conclusion, I know my first year I really needed my fellow 6th grade Science teacher. We were both new and new to teaching. I think we both wanted to be good teachers, team players, and have a good way to communicate with parents. I feel I am still striving for these things now, it is just more difficult to see the changes.