Well, here I am. . . . At the end of my first year teaching. . . . And I'm switching classrooms and moving into the 3rd grade hall. I'm still a 2nd grade teacher having to vacate to make room for growth that's headed our way next year.
So I employed my little tribe while I still had slave labor and put them to work taking apart my classroom. They took stuff off my walls and cleaned and sorted. I'm afraid this classroom will be much cleaner than the one I'm inheriting.
Over several weeks I hauled home my entire library which has inundated my office. I've purged old books and books in bad shape and now I've begun the task of cataloging and labeling every book. I was not happy with the way my library was used this past year. We had books, but they got piled up and all mixed together. And I really had no idea what books I had. I knew if I was going to help young students be better readers, they needed access to books and I needed to know how to help them find a book that was the right fit for them. The completed project will be a post for another day.
One of my last assignments for school was to write a letter to an upcoming first year teacher. So here ya go . . .
Dear First Year Teacher,
You’re gonna make it!! You’ll survive. You will probably even thrive on some days or weeks. It has been such a wild ride, but so worth it. You are amazing!
*Greet you students at the door every day and welcome them to school. This is such a good way to start off the day with them knowing how much you love having them in your class. I would even stand at the door and send them off with a high five or a goodbye at the end of the day. Getting to know your students outside of the classroom is such a vital ingredient to success. Those relationships really do make a huge difference.
*A good classroom management plan in central to success in the classroom. And then be CONSISTENT in following through. Consistency is key to making it work effectively. I thought I was going to be very consistent. It just seemed like my nature. Not so. I found I wasn’t as consistent and it was a struggle sometimes to reign in the class or individual students. One thing I discovered part way through the year is implementing class points in addition to individual rewards (fake pennies for a class store in my case). When the class wouldn’t settle down, all I had to do was stand at the front of the class and wait. At some point I started counting out loud and told them when I reached 60, I would take a point away. I found that they began to self-regulate themselves. I would stand silent and the students would start quieting each other. I found I really liked this approach.
*Don’t let the one or two hard students be your focus. Remember you have a class of students who work hard and are good students. Don’t let the behaviorally-challenged ones control your time and attention.
*Don’t be afraid to change how things are going midstream. If you find one aspect just isn’t working like you would like it too, change it up. Try something different. During third term, my partner read was something I wanted to change and make more consistent so I knew I had to find some extra time to make it happen every day. I rethought my end of day routine and had the students actually pack up when they came in from afternoon recess. This gave us a whole 30 minutes of uninterrupted time to do partner reading/journal writing/independent reading. I have loved it and am glad I didn’t wait until the following year to implement this new routine.
*Plan, plan, plan. Having at least a week planned in advance makes the week go by so much more smoothly. It is a lot of work, but if you keep copious notes, next year will be somewhat easier because you’ll have something to refer to. And plan to death the first week of school. Write down every little detail about the day.
*Rely on veteran teachers and especially your grade level team. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. There’s a lot besides teaching you need to know . . . how to run the copy machine, what your duties are, how to order supplies, etc.
*Each day is a new start. There will be days that leave you drained and exhausted. There will be days where you give up trying to cope with the behaviors. Just know that every day is a new start. What went horribly wrong the day before is now a clean slate to try again. Make a point to smile and be happy, especially when those long winter days set in and the tribe is restless and ready for mutiny.
*Don’t forget those things that you loved to do before embarking on this journey of teaching. It can be overwhelming at times. Don’t forget to take care of yourself. For me, I allowed myself to read for pleasure, even if for only a few minutes every day. This was something I looked forward to and rewarded myself at the end of the day for making it through yet another day.
*Go home at a reasonable hour. There is life outside of school.
*Find a way to be organized, whatever that may mean to you. I took some time before school started to set up folders on my computer so I had a way to file digital items as I came across them. This has been a huge lifesaver. I still have some cleanup to do, but at least I’m not reinventing the wheel and starting all over next year.
*Never stop learning and growing yourself. You have years ahead of you to become the teacher you envisioned on your first day. Don’t be hard on yourself when you fall short of what you thought you might be.
I won’t lie. The first year of teaching is hard. It’s a lot of long, hard hours. It is also full of a lot of rewards when you see a student “get it” or when you get those cute notes saying you’re the best teacher. Smile every day. Have a good attitude. That first year is something you will never ever have again.
1 comment:
You've learned a lot this year and lucky for your students, they have, too.
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