Changes

It's August and in my world it feels like Sunday night. School starts for me in 3 weeks and as a teacher I always feel that July is Saturday morning with the whole long weekend ahead, while August . . .well August is the "tomorrow is back to school" feeling. It's been an unsettling summer as far as school is concerned. When I left in June, there were 7 teachers on my team. As of this week, there are only 6. Due to low enrollments and fears of fuel costs, a teacher has been moved to another grade level. The teacher that was moved was my teaching partner which left me dangling. I am now going to teach with a wonderful young man. I was his mentor the first year he taught, and he has grown into an amazing teacher. So far so good. The downside to this is that I have to give up teaching the one subject that I love with my whole being, and teach a subject that I only tolerate. For all of my teaching career, I've taught social studies and was instrumental in changing the curriculum emphasis to ancient civilizations. I have built up a huge library of resources with my own money, and in fact had just purchased some great books for my Mesopotamia unit (with my money, of course.) I have always identified myself as a social studies teacher first and foremost. Now I'm not. I have to teach science (which I have done in the past) but I just don't love it. On top of this, I have to familiarize myself with the curriculum in just 3 weeks. To make it even more unsettling, I can't get into the building to get the textbook or materials until at least August 15th due to construction. I have contacted the other science teachers at my grade level who assure me that I will have no problems, but nobody has a textbook at home. I will also be teaching language arts, which I do enjoy, so it's not a total loss, but I feel like my identity has been ripped away. I keep telling myself, it will be okay, but I don't believe it yet.

So, three weeks left . . . .