Class Is in Session

Episode Transcript

KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:00:00]:
Last time on Year One, things started to get real for Jenna when she met her first class of students and their parents at open house the day before the first day of school.

JENNA MACNULTY [00:00:10]:
I think it's important for parents to meet me because I was able to tell them that, like, hey, I'm a first year teacher. I'm going to make mistakes. But, like, at the very base level of everything, we are going to have fun in this room and we are going to learn in this room and we are going to work as a team.

KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:00:27]:
On this episode, class is finally in session. Welcome to Jenna's first day as a teacher. This is year one, brought to you by Carnegie Learning, a podcast that chronicles all the ups and downs of one teacher's first year in the classroom. I'm your host, Kanika Chada Gupta. As the 2024 school year is underway, teachers are already working under strained conditions brought on by a national teacher shortage. One symptom of this problem is that new educators like Jenna are starting their teaching careers with class sizes that are much larger on average than they were even a few years ago. More students per class can mean students get less individual attention from their teachers. At the open house, the day before her first day in the classroom, Jenna met all 26 of her third grade students.

JENNA MACNULTY [00:01:23]:
So, like, that kind of was helped me transition a little bit because I'm like, even though I don't know these kids at all anymore, like, I've seen their faces, I don't know if I could pick them out in a crowd, but they've been in the room before. So that kind of was like one thing. But that morning, honestly, I didn't really feel real.

KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:01:41]:
Greeting the kids who would become her first class helped calm some of her anxieties about the first day while also introducing a few new ones.

JENNA MACNULTY [00:01:51]:
Obviously, I was so nervous for what was to come because I didn't know what to expect from a lot of my students because, you know, kids behave completely differently with their teacher versus their parent. When I met them with my parents, I'm like, how they behaved with their parent is not how they behave with me, whether it's in a positive way or a negative way. So even though I knew what faces were showing up to my classroom, I didn't know what attitudes and what behaviors were showing up to my classroom. And also, I think one of my other biggest fears about behaviors, you never know how you're going to be able to deal with your students until you know them on a personal level. And sometimes it takes a long time to get to know, a student and their quirks. Like, even during my student teaching last year, during my senior year of college, I was there for, what, five months? And some of my students, I didn't even figure out their quirks or how to really reach them until the very end of the time that I was with them. So just knowing that it takes time and effort and consistency is kind of daunting. So, yeah, that's definitely one of my other fears is just, you know, getting a grasp on each student at the individual level and, you know, also as a whole group, because, you know, managing 26 kids at a time, it's not easy.

KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:03:07]:
A day full of classroom prep followed by a big event full of first impressions left Jenna feeling drained.

JENNA MACNULTY [00:03:16]:
I was exhausted when I got home, so I was, like, super nervous, but I was too tired to think about it. So as soon as I got home, I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna get there super, super early in the morning, and I will feel more prepared then. But right now, I need to go to sleep in the morning. I woke up so early, I set twelve alarms because I was like, I have to get up and get ready. I got there literally, like, an hour and 15 minutes early because I'm a psychopath. The kids can walk in the door at 08:00 and I'm pretty sure I rolled up to the school at, like, 645. And I was like, well, here we go. And it didn't really hit me until it was like, two minutes before the kids were walking in.

JENNA MACNULTY [00:04:04]:
And the other first year teacher across the hall and I were standing there, and we were like, this is real. Like, we're really doing this. Like, we have two more minutes until this is real, and we just have to figure everything out as we go.

KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:04:19]:
Now. That moment finally arrived. This was her classroom. These were her students. At long last, Jenna is a teacher.

JENNA MACNULTY [00:04:30]:
On the first day of school, there really is no, like, routine or expectation. So I had to, like, tell each student as they walked in what they were expected to do, even though it was on the board. But, you know, they don't like to read the board. They're like, what are we supposed to do? This morning? I'm like, read the board. Once all the students were there, one of the things that was on my brain literally the whole morning was, I was like, I have to take attendance. I have to take attendance. I cannot forget to take attendance. So I, like, wrote it on a post it note.

JENNA MACNULTY [00:04:56]:
I put it on my little attendance sheet. I was like, put attendance in power school, put attendance in power school. I did it as soon as all the kids were in my room. So that was a, that was another win for the day. The first thing I did was introduce myself, like, on my little slides that I had prepared. I had a bunch of pictures of me and my family and things that I like, and I went through all of them and I let them ask a few questions about me. And by that point, I was like, I have 15 more minutes until specials. And I had, like, three more things that I had to do.

JENNA MACNULTY [00:05:25]:
And at that point, I had only introduced me. Like, the kids hadn't introduced themselves to each other. So I was like, hey, we're gonna sit in a circle and introduce ourselves. That was one thing. After that, I was like, man, we sped through introducing ourselves, and we really should have taken more time to do that because that is so important. By the end of the first day, every kid should know everybody's name.

KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:05:48]:
Anyone's first day on the job can be busy, but compared to wrangling 26 3rd graders, it can feel chaotic. And sometimes you have to focus on the small, necessary things and call it success.

JENNA MACNULTY [00:06:00]:
And then the morning went by so quickly because the late bell rings at 825 and my kids have specials at 930. My kids had music as their special. So it's really just an hour that I had with my kids before they had to go somewhere else. Like, with eight year olds and nine year olds, an hour is nothing. It takes them 15 minutes to get the right material and write their name at the top of the page. It went by so quickly. So, yeah, it was go, go, go. And then I met up with my team to do a little check in of, like, how are we doing? How are we feeling? All the other teachers were like, first day school.

JENNA MACNULTY [00:06:40]:
All you have to do is have them say their name, get them lunch, and get them on the bus. Like, if you do those three things, it was a win of a first day.

KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:06:50]:
To combat the craziness and help develop a rapport with her class, Jenna chose to be upfront with her students about her relative lack of experience.

JENNA MACNULTY [00:07:01]:
I told my kids, I was like, hey, I'm a first year teacher. Like, I'm new at this. I want you guys to show me what a classroom is supposed to look like, to kind of put that responsibility on them. I think them knowing that I'm a first year teacher hopefully will give them a little grace toward me in those moments that I will need that support.

KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:07:20]:
Jenna needed the grace, particularly on the first day. She walked into her classroom with a list of things to get done. And you know what they say about best laid plans. They don't always go to plan. Things were a bit rough and tumble for Jenna on the first day. Plenty of things didn't go as well as she'd hoped.

JENNA MACNULTY [00:07:39]:
What did not go well was probably the timing of everything. Just because I underestimated how long everything was going to take. And the other teachers warned us about this, they were like, you are not going to get through everything you plan for your first day. Like, you just are not. You get through what you get through, and that's it. And in my brain, I was like, yeah, that makes sense. I'm not going to get through everything. But, like, they meant it.

JENNA MACNULTY [00:08:00]:
I got through three out of the twelve things that I planned. Like, I genuinely. I didn't have my kids even, like, label their supplies until the afternoon, when that was supposed to be the second thing that they did. That was one of the hard things, was because then I was like, I'm behind. Like, I'm doing something wrong. At the end of the day, things just needed to get checked off the list. It didn't matter in what timeframe. So that was something I had to learn.

KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:08:24]:
While the timing of everything was a bit sideways, there were aspects of the first day that did work out as Jenna had imagined and hoped they might.

JENNA MACNULTY [00:08:34]:
Something that went well was at the end of the day, I did, like, a little team building exercise where I've seen a lot of people do this. I even did it in high school, but it translates to any age, which is nice. I did an activity where each table group, they had 20 spaghetti pieces that weren't cooked and 20 marshmallows, and they had to see who could build the tallest tower, and they had 20 minutes to do it or something like that. And there really were no rules besides that. And by the end of it, I went around with a ruler and, you know, measured all of them. And were some of my kids super competitive when they didn't win? Absolutely. But it was a nice moment to be like, oh, no, these kids are going to be able to work together. You know what I mean? They're going to be able to think creatively and think outside the box.

JENNA MACNULTY [00:09:21]:
And I think it was just nice doing a fun activity.

KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:09:25]:
By the end of the day, Jenna had to come to accept that her ambitious twelve point plan was unrealistic, and she'd have to settle for a simple first day of getting to know her class. And yet, as the first day drew to a close, one final obstacle remained.

JENNA MACNULTY [00:09:43]:
That is the biggest challenge of the first day of school, is making sure everybody goes to where they're supposed to go at the end of the day. Like, you have that information, but you're the one who has to create the list for your class of knowing if you want it all in one place. And if you look at the clock and you're like, oh, my gosh. Dismissal is in five minutes and they're not packed up. You're not getting out of there in time. That happened to me on the first day. I was like, I wasn't late by any means, but I remember literally, like, losing my cool for a second and being like, everybody move. Everybody pack up your stuff.

JENNA MACNULTY [00:10:11]:
Go, go, go, go. So, yeah, it was definitely one of those moments where I was like, you gotta be looking at the clock like you have to. It's just if you prepare and you pack up early, I think if I could redo it again, I would rather do that and end the day with, like, a simple activity or a simple, like, video or something while they're packed up at their seats waiting for the bell, instead of panicking, trying to race toward the bell, I think that would have made it a lot cooler. Instead of being like, we have to go.

KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:10:42]:
With her kids out the door and a quiet calm that had come over the classroom, Jenna took a beat to reflect on the whirlwind that she'd experienced.

JENNA MACNULTY [00:10:52]:
So, like, the first day, it was chaotic. So I think my brain was just so on the track of, like, complete this task, complete this task, complete this task. Definitely wasn't living in the moment as much as I should have because of that, like, anxiety and that pressure to get everything done that I needed to get done. But, like, you could take a deep breath and be like, hey, I'm a teacher now. Like, I am an actual teacher. I have a class of students. They came in my room. We did everything we needed to do, and they walked out of my door.

JENNA MACNULTY [00:11:23]:
Definitely surreal.

KANIKA CHADDA GUPTA [00:11:26]:
This is year one, an exploration of one teacher's first year in the classroom, brought to you by Carnegie Learning. Join us for the rest of the series as we follow Jenna through every moment. And be sure to follow Miss McNulty on Instagram and TikTok to keep up with her. For additional exclusive content free teaching resources and more, visit yearonepodcast.com dot next time on year one, Jenna learns the value of having clear rules and routines for her classroom. But it's a lot more work than she thought.

JENNA MACNULTY [00:12:04]:
The first day of school, I was expecting it to be chaotic second day of school. I was expecting it to be chaotic, but when it started to become a routine of chaos was when I was like, holy cow, I need to learn how to.