First day of teaching!

I just finished my first day of teaching and am feeling pretty great overall. 

First, I was mostly well prepared - I'm not sure how I will sustain this level of preparedness every day - seeing how I put hours in over the weekend, but the lesson itself went mostly well.  Obviously there are a lot of ways I want to improve my planning for the future - but what I had planned, went as planned.

Second, we had a small group of 7 mostly well behaved kids.  I feel extremely fortunate.  Some corps members were crying at the end of the day due to behavior management problems.  I just heard one corps member talk about how he broke up a fight in the first 5 minutes of class.

Third, my TFA school director left me a nice note of encouragement after my first lesson: "Thanks for letting me observe Day 1/Lesson 1!  Super impressed!  Your students are really engaged and already mastering being able to describe character traits!  You have a great presence, volume and tone in front of class."

Fourth, my fellow TFA co-teacher sent me the most awesome email I've received since arriving at institute: "You're in the middle of your lesson, but I just saw an awesome moment so I wanted to let you know.  It was great to see your students shout the answer to how you inferred that Sunita was angry.  They had clearly understood the concept and your modeling of it.  You seem to be teaching with a very good pace.  Great job.  I'm excited to be here teaching with you."

And lastly, when we got off the bus after our long first day of teaching, TFA had arranged a party for us on the lawn.  There was music playing, staff members standing around with signs saying "Great job", etc, I got handed a Mr. Freezee ice pop the second I got off the bus and was given a cool TFA 2011 corps member t-shirt. 

Despite having an overall good day, I can't tell you how much this energy and support lifted my mood...perhaps enough to sustain me through another long night of planning for tomorrow!