Today marks the last official contracted day of my first year back in the classroom. Tomorrow, I leave for a long-awaited trip to England and Scotland. The parallels beg for comparison.

Six years ago I completed my last contracted day for the school year with the prospect of a trip of a lifetime to London and Paris. On June 6, 2011, I packed up all my things, checked everything off the list, grabbed my name tag, turned in my keys and left. At the time, I thought that I left more than just the building. That day I left teaching. A huge weight rolled off my shoulders. I walked with my back straight, no longer bent under the strain of what felt like too much for me to handle.

I end this year with a feeling completely unfamiliar for me in my teaching career. This time around has been like a complete restart. I compare it to a video game. I have been through this level before but I died before making it out of the level. I restarted the level with complete knowledge of what I did wrong and armed with increased maturity and additional tools.

To better analyze this refresh year, I want to compare this year to my first year. I marched into that classroom with grand ideas for just how well I would teach and how well everything would work. I had nerves, of course, but I also had a false sense of confidence. Reality quickly set in. That confidence melted away in a flash flood. When I came back to teaching, trepidation weighed down every step. I remember starting to cry on one of the work days thinking about how ill-prepared I felt for the coming year; I didn’t want to fail, again.

God blessed me with an amazing veteran teacher as a cohort who reached over, gave me a side hug and promised that we would get through this together. Phend, if you read this, thank you! I will miss you so much next year.

The first thing that punched a hole in my boat that original first year was classroom discipline. I started teaching at 23. I assumed that I had plenty enough life experience. I also knew that I would be able to handle discipline in the public school system despite my personal history at a private Christian school; I completed student teaching at Lakeview after all.

That very first semester God placed a student with an emotional disability in one of my classes. This boy had explosive anger that absolutely terrified me. I had no idea how to handle this. I had no clue what to do a student – or multiple students – treated my instructions with utter contempt. My mind simply could not understand the fact that these kids would choose disobedience or defiance. Too often I reached the end of my rope and resorted to raising my voice, most often in threats I could not back up. The kids sensed my fear and capitalized on it. Each day I woke with dread.

This year I learned from the mistakes of the past. Things have not been perfect; I can look back and identify areas of improvement. The overall experience, however, has been completely different. This time, I was mindful as much as I could, to keep my voice on an even keel and to follow through with the procedures I established. There was a time with my sixth period lovelies that all I could see was a continued downward spiral into history repeating itself. The difference this year came in my cry for help. While things were far from perfect with that class, I know that the students have more respect for me and that I have a grasp on even more tools in my tool kit.

Another thing that left me feeling like I was hung out to dry my first year was the fact that I, as a related arts teacher, lacked a team on which I could rely. Granted, Beck, as an International Baccalaureate School, placed a heavy emphasis on language learning; every student took a language class each year. That meant that Beck employed 3 full-time language teachers: two Spanish and one French. Although we met fairly often, we did not plan together as my cohort and I did every week this past restart year. Rather, I spent countless hours preparing four separate lesson plans every week. I taught 6th, 7th, and 8th grade exploratory as well as Spanish 1. That alone consumed hours of my evening and weekend time.

In contrast, this year I benefited greatly from a fantastic team, cohort teacher and co-teacher. I relied heavily on my cohort teacher and her twelve years of experience at Lakeview, especially at the beginning of the year. I cannot adequately express just how grateful I am for all her support and patience. I remember promising several times at the beginning of the year that I would start pulling my weight. She always responded with a smile and assurance that it was no problem at all.

Then there’s my team. We jelled from day one. We hit the ground running and proved as the only core team without a male teacher that women can more than get the job done. We took our school’s motto of TEAM – Together Everyone Accomplishes More – and proved it. Even though three out of the four of us started the year brand new to Lakeview and one brand new to teaching altogether, no one would be able to tell. I knew that I could rely on them. We made decisions together. This level of support and camaraderie exists rarely. I feel privileged to have been a part of it this past year and thankful for the prospect of another year working together.

I ended that first year with the plan to spend the summer digging into books on classroom management, desperately hoping to find a way to salvage my teaching career. I did not want to spend another year as exhausted, frustrated and burnt out as the year before. I dreaded the oncoming of another school year because no matter how much time I planned to spend preparing, I knew that I would not feel prepared enough.

This year, however, I end the year with satisfaction. I plan to spend my non-travel days this summer working on my teaching as a whole, taking the next steps in becoming the best teacher I can be. In between my four trips – yes, I like to travel – I will be taking two grad classes to obtain a GT (Gifted and Talented) Endorsement as well as working on my long-range plans for the year. (In fact, although I tried to work ahead, I will be taking grad work with me to London!) I am looking towards the upcoming year with anticipation.

At the end of this reflection, I have to acknowledge just how grateful I am to God’s work in my life over these past eight years. No other human explanation suffices.