My first students are graduating from high school on Saturday night!
I was hired for my first teaching job two weeks after school had already started. I was so excited about getting a job that I didn't care...until I realized what had happened, LOL!!! You see, the other three first grade teachers had overflowing classrooms (over 30 students each) and they had two weeks to get to know their students and choose who would be leaving their rooms...you can imagine the group I ended up with! I had a room full of behavior problems: chit-chatters, fighters, lots of ADHD...but, I didn't know that at first--all I knew was that these were my students and that I loved them.
The district was remodeling our school, so I was in another building all by myself~I had second graders on one side and intermediate school ages on the other! It was wild, to say the least. My mentor came to my classroom ONE TIME all year! Not too helpful... The second grade teacher next to me ended up mentoring me the most~her name is Dale Phillips and at the time, she had been teaching for over 30 years. (She ended up teaching way past retirement age~just writing about her makes me want to give her a call!).
Well, two weeks into taming my students, I felt like giving up! My baby, Lamb, was 18 months old at the time and would cry every morning when I left him at the baby-sitter's house. I was so stressed out, I would cry on the way to work. I remember, after a week of this, thinking, "I can't do this--I have to quit!". But I couldn't. I was in the middle of a divorce and I had to have a job. I made little "surprise" visits to the baby-sitter's house, just to make sure that my baby was being treated well (and he was!). I talked to friends about what to do...one friend told me to hang in, because after a couple of more weeks, Lamb would probably stop crying and adjust to our new lifestyle.
And, he did. But those weeks were torture for me...trying to tame the students while worrying about my baby--I was miserable. And, I think that's where some resentment began for me (thank you, dh, that I can stay home with my babies and homeschool!)--I felt that I had to raise everyone else's children while leaving my own baby with someone else. I left school right on time every day to pick him up and his baby-sitter told me that my ex and I were the ONLY parents to pick our child up right after work!
Anyways, I did have a good first year of teaching and I bonded with my students (I kind of felt like their parent~lots of nurturing and teaching manners along with skills). Many times, I brought Lamb with me to play while I worked in my classroom, and my students loved to play with him.
So...we are going home for my dh's party, and I am going to try to go to graduation Saturday night! I would love to see which of my students are still in the area and hear about their future plans.
High Tea is often a misnomer. Most people refer to afternoon tea as high tea because they think it sounds regal and lofty, when in all actuality, high tea, or "meat tea" is dinner. High tea, in Britain, at any rate, tends to be on the heavier side. American hotels and tea rooms, on the other hand, continue to misunderstand and offer tidbits of fancy pastries and cakes on delicate china when they offer a "high tea." 
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