More than two months into her first job as a teacher, Connie Johnson says she's even more excited about her second career choice than she was at the beginning of the school year.
Not even September's teacher walkout, which kept her out of her Horizon Elementary School classroom for one day, has dampened the enthusiasm Johnson brought to the school year on Aug. 28.She is one of 1,925 teachers this year classified by the state as "new," a designation that includes those who are returning after leaving the profession for a variety of reasons, including raising a family.
Johnson left a seven-year business career in 1976 to raise Michael, 13, and Ryan, 9. Her interest in their schooling helped her decide to return to Brigham Young University for a second degree in education.
Now she spends her workdays with 25 first-graders who demand all of her attention from 8:45 a.m. until 3 p.m. Once they're gone, Johnson settles in for several more hours of grading papers and preparing lessons.
The amount of time it takes to be ready to face her students the next day came as a surprise to Johnson, who said first-graders do not sit quietly when their teacher tries to do paperwork during class.
"I've been here lots and lots of nights until 8:30. I've never been home before 6 except the day they fumigated the school," she said. "I always knew I wanted to be dedicated and would spend the extra time, but I had no idea."
Johnson is also finding out that some children are better prepared for first grade than others. Some have mastered the basics of school behavior, such as asking permission before heading to the bathroom. Some have not.
"There are things that sometimes we take for granted as adults. Like when the bell rings, we know it's time to go. First-graders don't always know what that means," she said.
So besides colors, numbers and letters, Johnson's first-graders are being taught classroom manners that she hopes will stay with them through their academic careers.
But what has caught her most off-guard as a new teacher is not the amount of time she's had to devote to the job or the different levels of social skills her students possess.
It's the depth of feelings she has for each of them. "You can actually love the kids and care about them in such a short time. I had a boy move away and it broke my heart."
Johnson sees that bond as one of the rewards of teaching. Unlike other jobs, where an employee can go for days or even weeks without praise, "I get loved every single day," she said.
The downside of the emotional attachment comes when she senses her students are troubled by family or other problems that aren't related to school and are out of her control.
"I've stayed up all night worrying about some of the kids," she said. "Children, especially when they are 5 or 6 years old, should be happy. Sometimes they're not. That bothers me a lot."
Johnson does her best to make all of her students feel secure. "I tell them when you're in my classroom, you are safe and you are loved," she said. "But when they go out that door, I don't know what happens to them."
One worry her students were not burdened with was the day of school they missed on Sept. 25 when Johnson joined other teachers in a statewide walkout to protest the lack of funding for education.
"I told them they didn't need to be concerned about it." Any more explanation only would have added to the sense of disruption they already felt, she said.
Johnson's explanation to adults for staying out of school reflects the mixed feelings many teachers had about abandoning their classrooms to make a political statement.
"I wish there was another way," she said. "It's difficult. I think you want to do what's best for everybody." And what's best for her students, she said, is more money being made available to schools.
In the upcoming months, Johnson knows she'll face new challenges, including the inevitable parting from her students at the end of the school year. But she plans to maintain her level of enthusiasm no matter how much effort it takes.
"I'm swimming twice as fast because I'm a first-year teacher," she said. "But I see other teachers who have been here a long time swimming right along beside me."