1. I smile more genuinely. I know deep down that I've already gone through the worst of my career. I (hopefully) may never have to be as disorganized, unfocused, exhausted, or insecure as I was my first year of teaching.
2. I'm working a reasonable amount of hours. I got to school around 6:45am and came back home around 4pm. And I only spent about 1-1.5 hours working from home. Last year, I was getting to school by 6am and leaving around 6 or 7pm, only to come home and continue to lesson plan away by the fluorescent light of my home computer.
3. I am not invisible. I feel much more comfortable saying the "Good mornings" and "How are ya?"s to staff. I was so caught up in my own chaos last year that I felt no inclination to making an actual presence at my school site. Big mistake, but this year that's exactly my goal--make a presence, learn people's names, get noticed (in a positive way!). I even made attempts at collaboration opportunities with the math department... didn't turn out as I'd hoped but at least I tried!
4. I'm aware of my resources. I know how to access the computer lab, copy room, library, counseling, IT work orders, classroom supplies, the phone system, my website--heck, I even know where the bathrooms are now... all before the kids even walked in the door! I did just learn that I have to ask for an aide (which I ironically learned from a student that requested to be my aid).
5. I am confident. This is a big one that probably carries all the other ones. Last year, I'd just gotten out of a miserable student teaching experience that left me terribly insecure and unprepared. My energy invited tension, where I now hope to invite trust. Last year I had no choice but to "try new things". This year I'm grateful for the opportunity to try new things, although it's nice to know that I have something (albeit not great) to fall back on. I can carry myself to the classroom confidently and enter with pointed purpose, where I don't need to be dragging along my pedagogical intents through the mud only to arrive to school unsure of why I'm even doing a "warm-up" in the first place (I can answer that now as "I assumed warm-ups should be a routine thing, despite my understanding of research saying that they are ineffective."). I am doing a better job of understanding why we're doing a particular activity that day, not just because I just need to give you something to do while I think about what I'm going to do with the other class in 45 minutes.
6. I am teaching two (familiar) preps. I was going to leave the list at five but it's worth mentioning that my first year I was assigned three different prep periods: college and career readiness, a historically lower-track freshman class that is tossed around to new teachers without a trace of standards/curriculum; regular physics, historically unpopular and again, no curriculum or partner teachers; AP Physics 1, a monster on it's own and host to all "top ten graduating seniors" of the class of 2015. It took me two days into the school year to realize how tightly I would be pulled in three different directions. I would not wish this teaching assignment on my worst enemy.
It was the "top ten" class of '15.
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