What I Wish I had Known My First Year

As the new school year is about to begin, there will be thousands of young men and women entering the classroom for the first time as teachers.  If you have made this career choice, congratulations.  That's not an easy thing to do in 2018.  The early part of this year was filled with teachers protesting all over the country, so you may think that it is a pretty lousy job that you will do in poor conditions (and they may actually be true in some places).  Someone in your life probably tried to talk you out of teaching in the last four years, attempting to convince you that you could make more money doing something else or that you wouldn't be safe because news coverage of school gun events make it seem like every school has one (much like plane crashes give people fear of flying even though the numbers are quite small).  At some point, someone has probably used "Those who can, do . . ." in their attempt to dissuade you from following the call of education.  So, before I mention some things I wish I had known, let me congratulate you for ignoring all of that to choose this profession.  It has its challenges, yes; but you will soon find that those challenges are far outmatched by its rewards. 

All that said, there may be nothing more difficult to get through than your first year of teaching.  Other than student teaching, there isn't a way to experience it until you are in a room alone with your students, who, along with their parents, expect you to be as good as the teacher they had last year even though that teacher had 15 years of experience to your 1 day.  Keeping a few things in mind will help.

1.  It's okay to not know the answer.  Students will ask questions every day that you won't know the answer to.  Don't be scared of that.  There is too much knowledge in your discipline for you to have it all in your head.  After a while, you will find it to be your favorite thing when a student asks you a question you don't know the answer to.  You will know that it means you are doing well, engaging students beyond the text.  In the first year, however, it can be frightening.  You might think that the students will think you are dumb if you don't know the answer.  In reality, they will respect your authenticity.  If there is time, google their question (or ask them to) to model the search for knowledge and the finding of credible sources online.  If there isn't time, tell them you will look it up (and write it down on a post-it so you will remember to look it up.  They will be floored if you return the next day with an answer to the question they may have forgotten they asked.  "I don't know" is a powerful sentence.  Use it.

2.  Don't be afraid to ask.  A lot of first-year teachers are afraid to ask for help.  I think it is self-protective because you think your job will be more secure if you look like you've got it all together.  Any administrator or colleague worth their salt will know that you don't have it all together because no one does.  Your school may have assigned you a mentor teacher.  That may be great.  If it is, ask them as many questions as you need to.  If that isn't great (because sometimes it isn't), befriend a teacher near you and make them your unofficial mentor.  If you have an administrator who is open, ask them questions.  They probably have experience in the puzzle you are trying to solve, so you want to know what they know.

3.  You don't have to say yes to everything you are asked.  You are going to be asked to do a lot of things, and you are going to feel like you have to say yes.  Parents will ask you to do things specifically for their child.  Some of those will be legitimate, and some won't.  If you don't know the difference, see point 2 and ask another teacher.  You will be asked to sponsor more clubs than you can handle.  It is okay to say, "I wish I could, but I am already the sponsor of two clubs."  I promise the student will not hate you forever. 

4.  Silence is more powerful than words.  When students are misbehaving, it is easy to go into lecture mode.  The problem is that lectures don't work.  Kids are used to being lectured.  Their lives are filled with sound.  If you refuse to speak, you will get their attention far better.  I don't do this often, but there are times when kids have gotten out of hand during a review game, when I've stopped or warned several times, when the kids are just not listening, that I have stopped and said, "You obviously don't need me" and then sat down at my desk and said nothing for the rest of the period.  (Don't try this if there are more than five minutes left in class.)  If you decide to try this, resist the urge to speak; don't even make eye contact.  Sit down and start grading something.  It freaks the kids out so much that you can hear a pin drop during that time. 

5.  Be the one in charge.  The easiest thing to be in your first year is the "fun teacher" until it isn't easy anymore.  A few months in, when the kids believe they can get away with murder, it becomes incredibly difficult.  Being the one in charge doesn't mean that you have to be mean and never smile.  You can do fun things in your classroom, but you will be the one who decided to do it.  You can enjoy your students without giving them everything they ask for.  My students know that they are not to take things off my desk without permission.  I rarely say no when asked, but they should not presume that I will be without asking.  Once it is established that you are the decider of what happens in your classroom, you can sing and dance and give them candy (although I don't recommend that) without losing your authority.  Kids don't say they appreciate this, but they do.  They don't actually like the easy, fun teachers that they can push around.  I know this because I've heard them complain about those teachers.

6.  Misbehavior is rarely personal.  Most books will tell you that the poor behavior of students is never personal, but I take issue with that.  On rare occasions, there will be a kid that just hates you know matter what you do and will try to take things out on you.  That is exceedingly rare, so you should treat most misbehavior as a kid's lack of impulse control and the testing of boundaries.  Even with those kids for whom it is personal, don't react to it that way.  It will only escalate the situation, turning it into a power struggle.  Avoid power struggles whenever possible because you have professional boundaries they don't have, making it hard for you to win.

7.  Have backup plans for your backup plans.  The thing that was hardest for me to navigate in my first year was timing.  I'd walk into a classroom with a plan I thought would fill 50 minutes, and it might take 20 minutes or 3 class periods.  It's just difficult to know until you have done it.  You need some things that you can do any day.  I have a bell in my room.  If I notice we are finishing up early, I pull out the bell and put it on my cart.  Then, I call out pairs of kids to the cart and ask them questions about things we have done in this chapter.  It's the quickest way to have a review, and you can fill time with it until you run out of material.  You are going to have a plan for a great lesson that requires the internet on a day when the internet is down, so you should be able to teach that material with a marker and whiteboard if you have to.  You do NOT want students with nothing to do.

8.  Apologies don't make you look weak.  When you have done something wrong, own it.  Apologize to the student you smarted off to.  Apologize to the class if you graded something wrong.  Make every effort to fix it.  You will strengthen your relationships with those students.

9.  Enjoy your job.  This job is hard, but it is also the most enjoyable way to spend a day.  You get to go to work, not at an office or on a roadside, but in a room full of youthful enthusiasm.  Your kids can tell you great stories.  They will teach you things you didn't know.  They will make you laugh.  If you can't enjoy those things, teaching may not be your calling.  If you can, it makes even difficult days better.