Thursday, August 21, 2014

A Year of Firsts



Today, it was a pretty significant first for me. It was my first day of school . . . as a Teacher Librarian.

For the first time in my 14 year career, I didn't spend the weeks before school preparing for 145 7th graders to enter my Reading classroom. Rather, for the first time in my teaching career, I found myself in a new school district, in a new position, working with a new staff, and with a whole new group of students (obviously, since I'm starting my 14th year in education, I'm an "old hat" at welcoming new groups of students into my reading realm each year . . . it's just that these ones are younger than my usual crew).

The reality of the last few days have prompted me to take pause and reflect on a few of the firsts I have already experienced as part of my new career path. In addition to those mentioned above, I've started to make a mental list of all the firsts I've experienced thus far. The list that follows is simultaneously amazingly incredible and horribly terrifying (I'll let you decide which ones are which):
            - first time being in charge of a library (I'm still reeling on this one!)
            - first time redesigning a library space (in later posts, I'll share that adventure . . . it's quite the story)
            - first time raising my hand as an elementary teacher
            - first time sitting through professional development as a Specials teacher (this is also another experience I'll blog about . . . it's been an adjustment that may trump all others)
            - first time realizing I don't have a single group of students to call my own (that just means they're ALL mine, right?!)
            - first time blogging
            - first time changing a laminating roll (oddly enough, this was not part of my Library Science program)
            - first time asking students in the bus line to "sit on their pockets"

And this isn't the first time I've counted my lucky stars for the what all these firsts signify. This collective list (and all the firsts yet to come) mean that I have started my dream job.

Today is was real . . . for the first time I could really own these words: I AM a Teacher Librarian.