Being The New Girl

Everybody hates being the new girl (or guy) – no matter where it is. I have a few friends who have said they hate going out to baby groups because they don’t know anyone, and they don’t want to be the new person on their own.

Starting work at a brand new school, I have become ‘the new girl’. I’m not alone – there are a few other new girls too, but it still feels pretty lonely. I can’t help but compare it to the great friends I had at my old school, how much we used to enjoy working together, and how they made going to work much easier, more fun, and more interesting. And boy, do I miss them! Like, I REALLY miss them. Everyone at my new school is extremely pleasant, very polite and welcoming, but it’s not the same as having 3 years of friendship with people.
It’s not just the people, but I also have no idea of the little nuances which make a school what it is. Phrases are thrown about – but never explained – and as a new girl, I have no idea what people are talking about. I’m still not even close to knowing where everything is (my class, the staffroom and toilets are about the height of it at the minute!), and who everyone is. I have 300 new names to remember – pupils and staff – and currently know about 50 of them…
The kids don’t know me, and I don’t know them. It’s such a change from having my pupils in my old school, where we knew each other well, and always had fun together, and had our little jokes…
Not to mention that I am so unprepared for ‘city kids’. I’ve always worked with ‘country kids’ before, and these city ones are a whole new breed. I knew I was out of my depth the very first day when somebody mentioned a former pupil had gone on to study at the local (to me) agricultural college. I was underwhelmed by this news, as that is pretty standard at my old school. At a city school, you may as well have said the kid was off to study on the moon! It’s such a different way of thinking. All I have learned about tractors and farming is useless here. I don’t know yet what these kids are ‘in to’, but I’m pretty sure if I bring up a Massey Ferguson, they won’t have a notion.
Being new is no fun at all. It doesn’t help that, despite its many flaws, my old school was so great and so has given me impossibly high expectations.
But now the kids have started and I can get on with teaching I am hoping things start to settle down a bit, and I find my feet a little bit more.
That said, I don’t think I’m going to find anyone to appreciate my sense of humor and sarcasm as much as those in my old school did…