The End

So...I've completed my first year of teaching! The last three months have been close to what I imagine it might be like to be a doctor. I put around 60 hours of work a week, and even when I wasn't working I was thinking about work. It was incredibly exhausting and not as rewarding as I had hoped, so I am glad it is over.

I have been working all year to improve the quality of education offered at our preschool. To do this, I have been implementing state and national standards, implementing a new curriculum, and working to have our program rated. I have been taking classes to earn my early childhood endorsement and taking four classes through our local AEA. It has been an incredible amount of work. I was really hoping this would be noticed by the community, and our enrollment would improve. This past year, we had 12 students. Unfortunately, I was absolutely crushed when we had no new parents attend our registration open house. At this point, we have 10 students registered for next year.

I was/am disappointed. I'm disappointed in myself, even though I know it's not entirely my fault. I'm sure there is something I could have done differently to help raise our enrollment, and I'm finding it difficult to forgive myself for not knowing what I needed to do. I'm disappointed that all of that hard work that I put into our program went overlooked.

I hurt for a long time - spent many sleepless nights walking through everything in my mind. I cried countless tears. It was agonizing and embarrassing.

Since then, my parent board and I have come up with a number of solutions to our problem, and we are hoping they help boost enrollment. We have heard from a few more possible students, and are hoping more will pop up. It's just hard to wait. Really hard...

I've turned into our preschool. I threw every ounce of myself into turning it into a high quality program and trying to gain attention from the public, and I have forgotten who I am.

I'm thankful for summer. I haven't taken any time off since I was a senior in high school. Work was fluid thing for me - it flowed from my college job to my summer job and back and forth until it flowed right into my first teaching job. I need a break, and I'm giving myself that break this summer. At this point, the only plans I have are to read endless frivolous books, kayak on the lake, and camp. This is the first time in years that I have given myself something instead of given myself to everyone else, and I'm excited.