Today's topic is all about your first year of teaching. I have been teaching for 15 years! I am not sure I remember much about my first year other than it was a blur and pretty rough in the management area.
At the end of student teaching in December 2002, a 4th grade position became open because the current teacher was moving to a Title 1 position. The administrator asked me if I would like the position and of course I said "Yes!" However, I was student teaching ELA and Social Studies and the position was Math and Science. Ouch! Thank goodness for the support I had that year! The former teacher came into the room many times to help me teach Math, and I had a wonderful assistant who helped me keep up with paperwork, student progress and much more. But I do remember walking into a new room of new students and not establishing rules and procedures with these students. I knew they already had them in place and assumed they would work with me. I was so wrong and learned my lesson! I surely learned so much in those long 5 months that college definitely didn't prepare me for. The real thing is the real deal and those experiences were growing experiences for me as a professional.
I can now look back and see how much I have grown as an educator. Even at year 15, I am still looking for new approaches to take with my students to keep them engaged and achieving success.
A few tips I would give new teachers is
#1 Establish your Rules and Expectations- Establish your Classroom Rules together so students are held accountable and take ownership. Set high expectations with a No Excuse policy.
#2 Take a deep breath at the end of the day and reflect on what went well and something to improve on.
#3 Collaborate with other teachers on lessons, behavior management techniques, etc..
#4 Take time for yourself/family each evening!
Here are the upcoming topics and hosts of these awesome blog topics!
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