View from a First Year Teacher

As I prepare for the new teacher panel discussion at Wichita State University I will participate in this week, I try to think of what I wanted to know as a first-year teacher, but I feel that’s not enough. The thing is, I had no idea what was ahead of me, so I didn’t know the questions I should have asked. Due to this, I have tried to put together a list of some things I learned this year. In retrospect, this list is minute compared to the list I could have for what I learned this year, but I must move on to other responsibilities and should probably get this posted sometime soon as the panel is quickly approaching. So, I’ll stick to the big ones.

Say Yes to “No”

Don’t be afraid to say, “no” to extra work. Please know that I’m not implying we should say no all the time, but I am saying that it is okay to know when your plate is full, and you cannot take on anymore. Honestly, I still need to work on this. I am one that enjoys my job, I enjoy helping others, and I enjoy successfully completing tasks, but I also enjoy completing tasks to the best of my ability and I have learned that I can not give my all when my plate is too full. I do not want to do anything half heartedly and if my plate was too full, I found that I did just that. I want to take pride in my work, not walk away with my tail tucked between my legs because I could have done better.

Find Your Marigold

This one pulls from an article I read as an undergrad by Jennifer Gonzalez, titled, “Find Your Marigold: The One Essential Rule for New Teachers”. I loved it so much I mentioned it in one of my very first blogs - you can find that here. Basically, I’m saying – find the positive teacher that spreads their light wherever they go and only wants the best for everyone. They are the one that will help get you through some rough days. They are the one that will give you the much-needed pep talk when a lesson falls flat. They are the one that sprinkles their love of education like fairy dust as they glide through the building. For those teachers on Tik-Tok, I’m picturing the “purple flame” filter here as their love of education illuminating the outer edges of their body. Hmm, maybe I’ll make this video later. Ha!

Lean on Colleagues and Classmates

By this I mean, YOU ARE NOT ALONE. I stayed in contact with many colleagues from my graduating class – almost my entire group actually. Not only did we go through the teaching program together and leaned on each other then, but now here we are all going through similar situations with different scenarios. We collaborated well in college and continue to do so outside of college. If you can, stay in touch. It helps. Additionally, you will soon have a building full of people with many years of experience and knowledge to soak up and pull from. Utilize them. It has been my experience that most of them want to help. We’ve all been a first year before and understand the difficulties that lie ahead, but we also know the amazing, rewarding experiences that lie ahead, too. Lean on them in good times and in bad. Oh and, please remember to celebrate the good with them too. Even with experience to help through the rough times, they like success stories and can learn from you also.

The Power of “Yet”

The inspiration for this comes from Trevor Muir, a teacher I follow on social media. He posted a YouTube video that I fell in love with, titled “The Power of YET”. As a tier 2 and 3 reading teacher I hear often how my students think they can’t read or are bad readers, so I took what Trevor had to say to heart and put that to use in my classroom. One of my tier 3 students at the beginning of the year received my “yet” speech and about a month later she wrote an affirmation to me stating how much that helped her. As her teacher, I could see it helped. She put forth more effort in class and she even practiced reading at home. Something she says she never did before. Well, at semester, she was moved up to tier 2. She saw improvements just as I had and felt confident in her newfound abilities. I’m so very proud of her and confident in her ability to continue to grow throughout the years. All because she was told, she might not feel she is a good reader - yet, but she can be, and with practice and purposeful work – She will be!

Flexibility

This is a huge quality and applies to many different categories. It’s important to be flexible in our lesson plans, but also flexible in our abilities, collaboration, and schedule. I think it’s a given to understand the importance of flexibility in our lessons. It is inevitable that we will make lesson plans that flop and require changing on the fly. I think it is also a given that we think our students are at one point of understanding, but discover they are actually in a different place; hence, flexibility is a necessity.

I also feel that it is important to learn to be flexible in our abilities to provide our students with a broad spectrum of instruction so that we can meet all their needs and learning capacities. I believe flexibility is needed for collaboration as well to understand that just because someone might not do things our way, does not mean it is ineffective. Additionally, as teachers, but also humans, we are all different – thankfully – and being flexible allows us to collaborate with one another and grow our weaknesses. Finally, schedule conflicts happen. Whether that be a parent that ended up having to stay late at work and unable to meet for the scheduled IEP meeting or that be you getting sick and needing to take that dreaded day off. Learning to be flexible in our schedule can relieve us of that stress when we brush the conflicts off and find a proactive way to switch things up and move on to the next. We have enough on our plate and should not add to the stress by overreacting when something does not work out like we had in our mind.

Para Expectations

During my four years as a para, I appreciated when teachers would go over their expectations for me in their classroom. Each teacher is different just as each student body is different, so it was important to understand my duties to effectively assist them and our students. For example, I had some teachers ask that when they are giving direct instruction, I remain seated and take notes along with the students for those that were absent and for those that required note-taking assistance. While other teachers might have had me actively roaming the room and monitoring all students as they took notes during their direct instruction. Another example would be that some teachers do not want the para to give permission to students to leave the room, while others might be okay with you giving permission for those bathroom, drink, or nurse visits. My advice on this would be to put together a quick reference sheet for your paras to keep in their folder or binder for your class and include things like: What to do during direct instruction, what to do during student active participation or work time, classroom management and/or discipline system, and maybe a quick check guide for specific students and their accommodations. I can tell you from experience it doesn’t take long to get the flow of each class down and meet each teachers’ expectations.

Flexible Seating

I love flexible seating. My classroom currently has a loveseat, two mid-century modern acrylic chairs, and two super cute cushioned chairs set up like a living room. With that said please know, I’m still working on a system that works for me. I’ve read blogs and articles on many different avenues to utilize flexible seating, and I continue the search to find a system for me. I’m open to suggestions.

This year I tried two different systems. Semester one, students would pay me ten gorilla bucks – our school monetary reward system – to sit in the flexible seating. Second semester I used a grade reward system where the students with the highest grades in the class could utilize the flexible seating. This worked, in that it drove some students to put forth more effort, but I still don’t prefer it and here is why: one, some students that really benefited from the flexible seating no longer had the option to use it. Two, it created more work for me as anytime I entered grades, I then had to update the board showing who could utilize the flexible seating based on their current grade, and three, I felt this put too much emphasis on grades. I’m not saying grades are useless by any means, but I also don’t feel that I should put that much emphasis on the grade. Especially when I want the seating to be used to benefit all that need it.

Death

This one is dreadful to bring to the table, but one that happens. As a para, I lost a student to suicide and I lost a co-worker this year. Both instances were unexpected and shocking and I’m sorry this is a topic on a “getting ready for your teaching career” blog post, but it’s one I felt was necessary because in just 8 years of education experience I’ve lost two. I know that we all grieve differently, and that’s partially the point of this section. Grieve in the way you need - use the counselors or take a day off if you need but stay healthy and take care of you because your students need you more than ever during this time. Many of my students had the other teacher we lost this year right before or after my class and it was important to remember that just as much as we were grieving, so are they. Check in with them, whether that be verbally or just by simply observing, - make sure they are okay too. I hugged one student while she cried and let another student who refused to go with a counselor just lay her head on her desk and cry as that’s what she said she needed. Meet them where they are and help them through it.

Update: I just posted this today and I'm heartbroken. I found out today that we lost a student that I taught last year during my student teaching. 

Build Relationships

I know we are taught this in college, but I can’t stress enough how important building relationships is. When I first entered my classroom, I was armed with our old textbook “The First Days of School” by Harry Wong. Spending the first few weeks of school building those relationships and classroom procedures and expectations – I believe – set the tone for my year. This next point might be harder to come by, but some districts use Capturing Kids Hearts training for all teachers and adhere to those standards throughout their building and district. Mine being one. It was just announced that my building is a national showcase school for the fourth year in a row. This training touched my soul. We cried, we laughed, we grew as humans and as teachers, and we grew closer to one another as a community. This training will forever be a part of me. My hope is that you also get the training and see the amazing outcomes.

End of Year

First year certainly ended differently than I think anyone could have imagined. Thank you, COVID-19! The thing is though, while it may have changed what education looks like for now, it hasn’t changed our ability to implement, collaborate, and find new ways to meet our kids where they are. If anything, it has strengthened those qualities. My district and my building have been amazing in paving the way for continuous learning. Kansas being the first to close schools for the remainder of the semester was a scary thought - but very real - and a challenge we faced head on. I couldn’t be prouder to be in my district and see the ways in which we are reaching our students. I mean prior to this; I would have never opened a Tik-Tok account for my students to follow me on but look at me now. I couldn’t reach some students and now I’m keeping in touch with students virtually by meeting them where they are. My advice on that though, if you should choose to make a teacher Tik-Tok, as many are, think long and hard about everything you post before you post it – then of course, follow me!

We have the best job there is! Trust in yourself and trust in your education. You ARE ready. Congratulations and welcome to a wonderful career!