First week (not first full week)

After 2 years of professional development, inquiry training, and whole lot of other only slightly useful non-sense (sorry to all who put forth the effort, but stuff starts to come clear as the days go by),  I finally get to practice a purpose in life I find worthwhile.  If i was not doing this I would not be able to tell you where I would be, and doubt would be excited or happy about it.

My first day was not entirely the first day for students to arrive.  There were staff development meetings throughout the next couple of days to lead us toward the 3-day weekend.  I met with my field-based supervisor, whom I will call my mentor for as long as I live to tell student teaching stories, and ran with our own type of experience of becoming a high school physics teacher.  He handed me everything the school handed him that day, which consisted of a Teacher handbook (on top of me already using my "Student" Teacher handbook), class schedule, development schedule, and power point notes for the principal's welcome back address.  The only reason I held these was so he could do lesson plans on his laptop.  No that was not the only reason.  He told me to get comfortable with the handbook and schedule.  It will give me insight on school policy and classroom management, plus a calendar so I can plan accordingly for the next 4 months.

We went to development meetings for the first 2 days, then friday we skipped out and got caught by an assistant principal.  Chewed out best describes what happened to us.  We were however trying to fix his wife's computer so she can send attendance via school program to the registry.  Yes, she is a music teacher there. It still at this time is not fixed, but we tried and cannot continue from there.

Real teaching started the day after Labor Day.  Getting there early was nice, but I was already proving that I had been accidental when I left all the rosters for each period on his wife's desk over the weekend when my task was to create a seating arrangement for every one of them.  I had actually gotten half the classes complete but not finding everything when I wanted to was disastrous.  Luckily with the attendance program, another roster was visible and was able to give the students an overhead visual the second before they walked in.  Word of advice given to me, be prepared, and of course, if you dont have a plan, then you plan to fail.