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Inside the Work Day

Careerleak's Typical Day Series goes behind the scenes in everyday careers, with articles written by the employee themselves. Find out what they are excited about, what issues they confront and more.

A Typical Day as a First Grade Teacher

It's 6:00 in the morning and I hear the alarm go off. I jump out of bed, shower, dress and start my day with a bar of chocolate. See, I am a first grade teacher and I already know that with 17 six and seven year old children I need a big energy boost.

When I get to school, I prepare my classroom, make copies, organize desks, sharpen crayons and pencils and before you know it - its 8:00 and the children are coming in. YIKES! I say "Good Morning" as they walk into the classroom and as usual half of them ignore me. But after five minutes I hear "tie me" un-zip me" "I can't open this" “I have a note for you" and the best "I need to use the bathroom" all in a matter of 10 minutes.

Once the children are settled I can finally begin work. Or so I thought. I have to get Ricky to stop sucking his thumb because nobody will touch his papers. I need to stop Cheryl from staring at Jessica because its bothering her. I need to tell Omar to sit in his seat and not crawl on the floor.

Before I know it, its snack time, and just when you think you have five minutes to yourself, you are wrong! Now you have to worry about who doesn’t have snack, who needs a spoon, who needs a napkin, who takes someone else’s snack and better yet- who spilled the snack all over the floor and is now crying. I keep telling my children "There is no crying in baseball and no crying in first grade" but again my words are ignored and luckily a cherry lollypop will save the morning.

After lunch the day does not get any better. Gino still can't find the page. Sally is drawing a beautiful picture of a cat or at least that’s what I thought it was, I didn't know it was our classroom - my mistake. I should have had 2 chocolate bars instead of 1 for breakfast. Omar is under the desk again, this time he tells me I can't see him cause he has his cape on- I wish I could give all my children a cape sometimes- but all superheroes need their rest and when it comes to that time when I think I will have five minutes of peace and quiet, I hear- "Your laying too close to me" "I'm not tired" "I don’t like this song" and in a nice quiet voice I tell them to stop it or else no outside for them tomorrow- YES bribery works wonders.

At 1:30 a knock on the door comes and it’s my 8th grade helpers. They only take 6 of my kids and every day I offer them candy if they just take all of them for the rest of the afternoon - but bribery only works with the little ones. They laugh and smile at me... little do they know I am not joking.

I finally get my other students packed up and at 1:55 we say goodbye and off they go either on the bus or being picked up from a parent. You would think my day is done- but it’s not. I now I have to go back in my classroom - close the windows sweep up the glue on the floor. Put away some of the toys, hang up the art projects to dry and feed our hamster making sure no one stuck a pencil inside of his cage at the end of the day.