Planning Fright

Each time I tell someone I'm a teacher I feel confidant.  Ya!  I'm a teacher!  It's great to say; to feel like you know something.  I think, "Ya, I'm a real professional!"  I can sit down at a table with other teachers to throw around the "teacher" lingo, a few buzz words here and there.  I know what they are saying; we get each other.

But then ...

I sit down with my text books in front of me.  I can feel the panic slowly to the pit of my stomach.  "What am I doing!"  My head is screaming at me.  "What was I thinking! I can't teach!  High school English?"

I think it's like stage fright, except different.

I stare at the list of things to cover: personal writing, subject writing, creative, writing, persuasive writing...the list keeps going.  "I don't know anything!  I'm not even a good writer!"  The panic is getting worse.  "How do I want to approach this?  Will they just tune me out?  What if I'm not creative enough?  How do I grab their attention?"  I only have one of my four classes laid out on the table and already I'm overwhelmed.  "How to I choose what to cover and how and when and....."

I should know all this. I've been teaching for five years!  Why can't I figure it out?  Ugggg... looks like I might be doing some flying by the seat of my pants if I can't scrawl out even a basic outline!