I am a high school English teacher that has it pretty good. What follows is my attempt to give voice to the smallest, most insignificant complaints imaginable from my first year.

I asked my aunt, a former teacher, for her sage advice before I started teaching. Her 40-plus years in education had taught her myriad lessons, many of which she passed on to me. But I still had a lot to learn.

I couldn’t sleep the night before school. As a third-year teacher and a career changer, I sometimes still can’t believe I’m a special education teacher at the same public high school my daughter once attended.