Year 5 begins

I am afraid I have reached a "7 year itch" in my teaching career (even though this is only my 5th year teaching). I am normally the peppy, excited, rah-rah teacher who is rallying everyone to be pumped up about the new school year but this year I don't have it in me. [I struggle with depression that can be quite tough to cope with but since so many other people have begun to talk about their experiences with overcoming depression I am going to catalog mine as well. So posts may seem dark at times but that is a nasty bugger inside of me and not a reflection of anything else.] I feel like I should be excited because this will be my first chance to teach a GT (gifted and talented) class. I feel like I should be excited because it seems that each year I know a little bit more about what I am doing. I felt like I should have been excited because I was going to get 2 Pre-AP classes. (I only ended up getting 1) I feel and feel but none of my feelings are what they are supposed to be. Instead I just feel sad everyday when I wake up and when I get to school I sit in my car and feel sad that I have to go in. Mostly, I feel tired and I miss the students I used to have and I wish I knew what was wrong with me. [Well, let's face it I do know what is wrong with me, I have depression issues, but what I mean is I don't know how to push past the depression cloud to find the me who does not feel this way.] I never let the sadness show though, I just keep smiling. I keep pretending to be me because I know I'm in here somewhere.

Smiling and smiling and the first week of school arrives. I met the students and some of my fake excitement turned into despair. This year is going to be a struggle, by day 3 I had students literally turn their backs to me to ignore me and for the first time ever I had students making fun of me. I keep looking each day for reasons to be excited again about teaching but I am finding it difficult to find my way. I know I will and I will make the connections I normally make and I will make the differences I should make but for now it is difficult to see those things.

With the Eeyore cloud that is following me this year I want to be sure to share good things at least once a month, so for now I would like to share a fun thing I did in my classroom. I found some really interesting inflatable organs from Oriental Trading that have facts printed on them. I blew them up and used binder clips and fishing line to hang them from the ceiling. The students have been quite interested in them so far.

Classroom fun thing #1:

Next time I'll show you some good things my students have done.