Back to the Studio

Well, the 2014/2015 school year is in full swing now and jobs are being posted and filled every single day. At the start of this week I was anxious for jobs to close and for my phone to start ringing. I managed to fill up my week with TOC work, which is great, but I still really wanted to land a contract this week…and I did just that.

I finished off last year completely burnt out and looking back, I can see exactly why that was: second year teacher, first full time, full year contract, grade 8 (challenging enough in itself at any school!) and seventeen out of twenty-seven of my students had IEPs, other designations, were ESL, or had undiagnosed or in process diagnoses going on. I worked so hard last year; there was never a dull moment. Of course I do not regret a single moment from my job last year, but if you’ve been reading our blog for a while now, you’ll know and understand how much energy and time I put in to my grade 8s. Going into this school year I was prepared to take the first job that came my way, but I was actually offered two jobs that I declined before I said YES to my new job for the year.

It was hard to decline the two jobs I was offered before I finally accepted my current position because I was antsy and just wanted a job, any job. However, the amount of work I put into last year’s class kept lingering in the back of my mind and I wasn’t so sure that I had the energy to pull that off again right away. I decided that this year I really needed to make an effort to regain some life balance and put my health, my sanity and my priorities before any job title. After all, I plan to do this teaching thing for my entire working career so it’s probably good to learn this lesson early on!

The good news is that I’m going to be a dance teacher again this year!

Some cool aspects of my 2014/2015 job:

-it’s at a high school (say what?! High school!?)

-it’s not full time (I’m excited about this because I can fill my afternoons with subbing if I want, or I can come home and like, make a really healthy dinner…something that rarely happened last year).

-while it’s not full time, it’s enough work to secure benefits and seniority while still saving a bit of money (important!)

-it’s creative and it’s still learning/teaching, just in a different capacity (read about how much I value out of classroom learning here).

-the students I’ll teach will actually want to be in the dance class because they chose to be there (I’m hoping I won’t have to deal with one behaviour issue because of this).

-I will get to work with some of my grade 8s from last year, and some of my dance students from two years ago (excited!)

-I know I am good at this job (not trying to be snarky here, but last year’s job was a massive learning curve for me in which I felt incompetent 95% of the time. I am really excited to plan/prep choreography instead of science this year…not that I dislike science, I just need a switch right now).

Anyhow, I feel as if a weight has been lifted off my shoulders since I accepted this job. I’m excited and feeling the energy we’re going to create in the studio already! My soul is set on fire to get going on Monday; I am ready to have the most fun possible with my new high school students. In the meantime I leave you with this fantastic music video. Can we just take a moment to appreciate that Enrique and Sean Paul are making a comeback…together? Ha. I mostly just really love the group dance parts of this video: