November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? This year’s focus is First Year Teaching Tips. There’s still room if you want to participate! Contact me and let me know your answer to this question:

What are some things you wish you had known before you started your first year of teaching?

Today’s response is from Clix, the author of Epic Adventures Are Often Uncomfortable.

Things I wish I knew when I was a first-year teacher:

1. Backward Design – Reviewing the standards and keeping them in mind as I plan my units and my lessons helps me to clarify for the students what they need to learn.
2. Each year will continue to get better (at least, as of the first four years!) as long as you continually review what’s working and what’s not working and examine WHY. Sometimes, though, you still have times of incredible frustration.
3. Minimize grading in every way possible; returning graded work FAST is incredibly difficult, but also essential. (It may not be as difficult if you’re not an English teacher; I don’t know.)
4. I knew that having a support system would be important; I didn’t realize that it would most likely save both my sanity and my career!
5. Whenever a class leaves the room for the day, pick up any supplies that have been abandoned – paper, pens, pencils, erasers, whatever. This has provided me with enough supplies that I always have some to loan out.
6. Being responsible for other people’s money is terrifying! Fill out receipts RIGHT AWAY and hand the money in to the secretaries as soon as possible!
7. Have back-up supplies on hand for anything you’re not willing to purchase out of pocket. Purchase orders can take longer than expected to be approved, and then there’s shipping. Don’t expect to get reimbursed for anything you buy without prior approval in writing from an appropriate supervisor. (I knew that one already, but it bears repeating!)
8. You will spend less time at the copying machine and use fewer copies if you require that students answer on notebook paper and give the photocopies back to you.
9. Very few students will be the type of student you were when you were in school, no matter what type of student you were.
10. There are lots of excellent books on teaching out there. If your library does not have a book you’d like to use, see if you can check it out through interlibrary loan. You can also take a notebook to Borders or Barnes & Noble and study from their nice, new books without paying a cent (you’re just not allowed to take them with you when you leave).

November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? This year’s focus is First Year Teaching Tips. There’s still room if you want to participate! Contact me and let me know your answer to this question:

What are some things you wish you had known before you started your first year of teaching?

Today’s response is from Scribbler, the author of Scribbler’s Den.

This has been a great exercise. I have so much to write about now!

1. A school’s focus on student results and grades is not necessarily a focus on their education. You should focus on their education.
2. The structure of the school year into units, terms and semesters mean the years will pass by more swiftly than you can believe possible. I feel like my first year of teaching ended just yesterday.
3. School can be an opportunity to pursue your hobbies (in my case, technology and writing). The passion you have for your hobbies can power your teaching.
4. Students for all their moaning about lack of freedom love structure and routine.
5. That new literacy initiative is the same as the literacy initiative introduced 15 years ago only it has a different name. Get a senior teacher’s perspective on the advantages and disadvantages of the program.
6. Students are more forgiving than teachers are. Teachers can be like elephants (they never forget).
7. Believe that students can teach you to be a better teacher: not just other teachers. You get to see their reactions first hand and they can be brutally honest when presented the chance to give feedback.
8. Teaching experience may be important but the energy, initiative and attitude of a first year teacher are powerful teaching tools as well. I try to team up with first year teachers wherever possible. Their enthusiasm is contagious.
9. Playground duty is an opportunity to network and build rapport, not a chore.
10. You shouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel; borrow, beg and ‘steal’ resources from your colleagues, the internet etc. And remember to share what you find.
11. Some school initiatives are CV initiatives. Learn how to say no politely but firmly if student interests aren’t the focus or your schedule can’t take the load.

Yeah I know there are eleven things listed. I couldn’t help it. :)

November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? This year’s focus is First Year Teaching Tips. There’s still room if you want to participate! Contact me and let me know your answer to this question:

What are some things you wish you had known before you started your first year of teaching?

Today’s response is from Emily, a regular reader of this blog.

1. NEVER assume your kids know the basics, you might be surprised.
2. It’s not you personally, but it might have been something you overlooked.
3. Sometimes, patience isn’t enough, though it will get you through the tough times.
4. First and foremost: love your students first, then share your knowledge.
5. Classroom Procedures should be set up the FIRST WEEK of school, not in the SECOND QUARTER!
6. Sometimes, the money doesn’t even play into it when your students “get it” for the first time.
7. Never think you’re insulting the students’ intelligence when setting up class rules. Sometimes, they are dumber than they look, doesn’t matter how old they are.
8. Everything I needed to know about Middle School students, I learned from my Preschoolers. Whoever invented TIME OUT was a genius!
9. Don’t be afraid to use a method book when trying to teach a new concept, sometimes it does the work for you.
10. If you don’t give yourself some ME time once or twice a week, bitterness will surely ensue. Watch out….

November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? This year’s focus is First Year Teaching Tips. There’s still room if you want to participate! Contact me and let me know your answer to this question:

What are some things you wish you had known before you started your first year of teaching?

Today’s response is from Pat Hensley, the author of Successful Teaching.

1. Knowing how to set up a grade book and weighing different assignments
2. Have a support system
3. Meeting with other new teachers and sharing day to day problems
4. Technology (computers in the classroom didn’t exist back then)
5. Constructive criticism from someone who actually taught in my subject area
6. Real textbooks (I had to dig mine out of the textbook dumpster at the end of the year for the next school year)
7. Reading other teacher’s blogs (if they existed back then)
8. Professional development in my subject area instead of general PD that was pretty useless
9. A mentor teacher
10. A smartboard/promethean board (these didn’t exist when I started teaching either)

November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? This year’s focus is First Year Teaching Tips. There’s still room if you want to participate! Contact me and let me know your answer to this question:

 

What are some things you wish you had known before you started your first year of teaching?

Today’s response is from Doug Johnson, the author of the wildly popular Blue Skunk Blog. Since he already posted his top 10 list on his own blog, I’ll go ahead and send you over there so you can see his first year teaching picture. He’s a brave man!

This is in response to (a very flattering) request by Joel on his So You Want to Teach blog. He’s asking for a list the 10 Things I Wish I Knew As a First Year Teacher.

Man, that was over 30 years ago now. I started as a high school English, speech and drama teacher in a small school district in Iowa in 1976. I was also the yearbook, newspaper, class play and speech contest adviser. My first year’s salary was $7,800. We lived in a house that I would not put a dog in today. And I was a terrible teacher.

If I knew then what I know now…
read more…

November is Reader Appreciation Month at So You Want To Teach? This year’s focus is First Year Teaching Tips. There’s still room if you want to participate! Contact me and let me know your answer to this question:

What are some things you wish you had known before you started your first year of teaching?

Today’s response is from David Warlick, the author of the wildly popular 2˘ Worth.

It is important to note that when I interviewed for my first teaching job and was offered the position, I didn’t know that I had been interviewing for a Math vacancy, and they didn’t know that they has been interviewing a Social Studies teacher. I accepted the job, however, and proceeded to have an utterly miserable year. By Christmas, I had registered to take the Civil Service exam so that I could become a rural postal carrier.

The next year, I was offered the social studies position at the same school and the entire experience changed for the better — much better.

There were two very important lessons that I learned that first year. Number one, “Don’t take it personally.” Teaching middle school students is, at times, struggle, and they will lash out as 12 year olds do. It isn’t aimed at you. Let it slide and move on.

Second, I learned that the job, our mission, is critically important. It is not about being a teacher. The job is about working hard and being inventive, to help your students learn and grow. Scientific research is helpful. But the best help comes in getting to know your students, and learning how to open their way to knowledge.

Finally, my experiences in the early years of my teaching may not be relevant within the context of this publication. When I entered the classroom, the personal computer, as we know it (keyboard, screen), had not yet been invented. At that time, I had no reason to believe that teaching would change in any substantial way over the next 30 or 35 years. Of course technology, and the changing nature of information, have dramatical altered not only how we teach and learn, but also what it means to be educated.

The sense of a shifting profession is not over. There will be technologies and practices occurring ten years from now, or five years from now, that we are not even imagining, and they will likely have an impact on what and how our students learn, not to mention how we learn.

A former state school board member in North Carolina said, “You go to college for your first job.” You get your education degree today for your first few years as a teacher.

It’s going to change!

You’re going to have to change.

It’s going to be intensely exciting.

Thanksgiving is a holiday for remembering what we have and giving thanks to our God for His blessings. I like to spend the months of November and December reaching out and giving. I practice giving as a regular habit throughout much of my life, but I specifically focus in these two months on giving back to my blogging community.

Last year I highlighted a number of readers with Reader Appreciation Month. At the end, I did some great summaries:

• 50 Classroom Management Tips I Have Learned This Month
• 47 Blogs That My Readers Are Reading
• Top 5 Character Traits Of Great Teachers
• 50 Reasons To Love Your Job As A Teacher

I recently created a list of 10 Things I Wish I Knew As A First Year Teacher. That list turned into a series and quickly became one of the most popular subjects of discussion on So You Want To Teach?

As this is a subject that resonates with many of my readers, I felt like reaching out to the blogging community and asking for some of your suggestions. If you could come up with a list of 10 things that would have made your first year of teaching (or the first three months if this is your first year), what would they be? I encourage you to contact me and let me know. I am going to post these responses throughout the month of November. If you have a blog and would like me to link to it, feel free to include that info as well!

I believe this sort of thing is one of the reasons that Liz Strauss named me as a Successful and Outstanding Blogger (SOB). For a list of these other blogs, and to celebrate her Successful-Blog‘s 3rd birthday, I invite you to join the birthday party and check out some of the other amazing blogs there!

As I have written before, I was terrible at classroom management. My first two years were miserable. I hated teaching. Then it happened. I absolutely believe that I would be the same teacher today that I was then if it had not happened!

What happened?
We had a friend of mine come in to work with the high school band and the two junior high bands. He is a retired band director and is an outstanding clinician.

He came and worked with all three bands. My band (the second junior high band) was bad. I knew that. I had kids who would talk back to me and just wouldn’t participate and everything else. I figured it was because of the city I lived in. It wasn’t as affluent as the school where I student taught, or any of the other schools I had taught private lessons in when I was in college. It was more rural. So I blamed the kids.

After my class, he pulled me into my office and basically ripped me a new one. He asked what in the world I was doing. He asked me if any of our mutual friends would be proud of the work I was doing there. He told me he was disappointed.

Later that week, the high school director said that the clinician had recommended that they not renew my contract. He told me that the next school board meeting was when they would vote to approve contract extensions and they weren’t going to vote to extend mine.

I was devastated
After all of the work that I had put into rebuilding the program and the morale of the students at the high school and elementary, I was going to have to find a new job. And what stung the most to me was that it was a friend who had made the recommendation. What if I had never invited him to come over? What if I had only told him to work with the high school and the top group at the junior high? Why did I have to do that to myself anyway?

Decision determines destiny
I had a choice. I could finish out the year sour and bitter over the whole issue, or I could learn from the experience. I made a choice. I got on the phone almost every day from then on and was calling up other teachers. I visited other teachers in my class. My new mission in life was to find out how to not lose my next job.

A Burden lifted
I turned in my resignation (so I could check the box that says I have never been nonrenewed) the day before the board meeting. Spring break was the following week. I sacrificed my spring break and spent four days in classrooms in other band programs. I asked the directors tons of questions. How do you do this? How do you do that? For a list of some of those questions (and soem of the answers I got), go read Questions That Will Save Your Career.

I came back from spring break a new man. The kids didn’t know what hit me. I became a benevolent dictator. I was in charge of the classroom (instead of letting the kids take over as I had previously done). I explained the new rules on Monday. By Tuesday, I was dishing out detentions left and right. it took a lot of work, but I finally started to see the ship turn.

• My classes started getting quiet
• My students began to get and stay engaged in the learning process
• My students began to retain interest
• My students started learning!
• Despite being strict, my students started liking me
• The HS director began to notice the change and the completely different atmosphere in the class
• I slept well each night

How I did it
I already told you about the questions I asked. I also changed my entire frame of mind. I didn’t formally announce it to the students until the last two or three weeks of the year. But a lot of them knew because I had told a few parents and rumors started spreading. What I noticed was that I wasn’t all that concerned any more. If the kids dropped out of band because I was making them follow rules, well maybe they didn’t need to stay in the program after all. I was not being mean, but I was being strict. I basically used the remainder of the year as a classroom management lab session for myself.

And it worked. The spring concert in May was the best concert I had in the district the entire time I was there.

The change in mindset was exemplified to me one day when I was at the high school. The restroom next to the band hall had been a student restroom, but was recently had a lock added and was converted to a faculty restroom because of some concerns they had with student usage. I honestly don’t know why.

One of the students came up to me and asked if she could use it. I told her, “well it’s a faculty restroom and you’re not supposed to, but what are they going to do, fire me?” I said it with a laugh, and she got sad, but it’s true. Sometimes administrators like to major in minors and focus on minutiae rather than the really important things. Before I resigned, I wouldn’t have let her go. I’m a rule-follower generally.

What else changed?
I took things less seriously. I enjoyed spending time with the kids while I was still there. I continued talking with friends and asking more classroom management questions. I have come full circle now and have almost become a classroom management evangelist. Why? Because I know firsthand both sides of the coin. On one side, you have a room full of clowns trying to take advantage of everyone. On the other side, you have the same group of kids behaving well because they know there are consequences to their actions.

Great story, but I just got fired! Now what?
One of my new blogging friends, Keri, has recently lost her job. So what practical advice can I offer her (or you if you fall in the same category)?

1. I used all of my local sick leave days
   In Texas, we have state sick days which transfer from district to district. We also have local sick days, which do not transfer. For the last 9 weeks of the school year, I used a sick day a week. I made some four day weekends, I had a job interview one or two days. I just sat at home and slept in some. Heck, if you don’t have local days, just take some YOU time anyway. The kids don’t need you. The administrators don’t need you.
2. Don’t burn any bridges
   Get a letter of recommendation from as many people as you can find who will recommend you. Have them on file. These will help tremendously with your interviews. I didn’t get any because I left on positive terms with everyone involved. My situation was unique in some ways.
3. Deepen the friendships you have built
   It always pays off to have other friends in other districts who will be there to help you out. Need the name of that one book that the kids enjoyed last year but you didn’t write it down, but it had a girl in a pink dress on the cover? Maybe one of the teachers there still can help you out! Or maybe the librarian can check and see what books you checked out. Whatever the case, it always helps to cement those relationships while you can.
4. Update your résumé now!
   Need some help? Go here.
5. Get as many interviews as you can
   The worst thing you can do is limit your options because you want a specific area of the state. I say that and I live in Texas. I had interviews 500 miles apart in two days at one point. If nothing else, you can some great interviewing experience through the process. The best jobs are available in May and June. Don’t wait until August before you widen your range of acceptable jobs! Take interviews on school days. You’ll be able to see the school in action, and it will give you a productive use of a day off.
6. Rekindle old friendships
   Some of the best jobs are never advertised. Most of the best jobs are filled by people who know people who know people hiring people. Brush up on your social skills.
7. Pray
   This was a period that found me seeking the Lord more than I ever have. It was August and I still didn’t have a job lined up. Summer band had already begun for most high schools around the state. I was falling behind. But God was in control. I had to submit to Him. I had to tell myself that everything would work out. And it did. I love my job now. I am in a place I wouldn’t have dreamed of wanting to go, but it works!

I know, lots of information to digest here. Have you ever been fired? What did you do that worked well for you? What did you do after losing your job that you wish you hadn’t done?

I found this article that I wrote back in November but never got around to posting on the blog.

Do I really want to teach?
In my first two years of teaching, not a week went by when I didn’t ask myself that very question. Many people face it every day. Without question, the most popular search terms that brings visitors to my blog are “quit teaching” and “do I want to teach?” I wonder how many Google searches are done each day on the subject. I wonder how many young teachers decide each day that this will be their last semester to teach. It’s tragic, really.

At the same time, the greater tragedy is the number of people who decide before they even begin — or while they are in college — that teaching is just too much to handle. Despite loving children and having a thirst for knowledge, they go by the wayside and don’t learn what they ought to.

How do I know if I really want to get into the education business anyway?
Let’s look at some ways to tell if teaching is really your thing:

1. You love the thought of making the world a better place
2. You look 10 years in the future and realize you would be sad if you never even once tried teaching
3. Few things satisfy you as much as observing growth in other people
4. You value learning
5. You value sharing knowledge and transferring that information to others
6. Teaching is something you do even when you aren’t thinking about it
7. You have (or are willing to develop) an uncanny level of patience
8. You dislike yelling at or belittling children
9. You don’t mind occasionally doing some seemingly unreasonable things for administrators
10. You want to make a huge impact in the lives of individuals

After reading through this list, if you determine that at least 5 of the qualities apply to you and that at least 7 of the qualities could apply to you with little effort, then I encourage you to jump into the pool. Finish the education courses. Student teach. Teach a few years. Ask tons of questions. Get the kinks worked out of the system. After that, then decide if you really want to do it.

Newby writes:

I have noticed lately in a couple of your posts you mentioned how terrible your first couple of years of teaching were. As a new reader, I have gone back into your archived information to learn more about this blog but have not come across why you had such a hard time. What made your first years so difficult? As a teacher with more years under your belt, do you think those experiences helped make you a better teacher or would you just as well forget about them altogether?

What made my first years so difficult?
I think there were a few factors that made my first year difficult.

1. I didn’t know how to control the class
   I am a firm believer that classroom management is your key to success in the classroom. I have since learned how to control my students very well. The knowledge that I would eventually learn it sure didn’t make the first couple of years any better, though.
2. I didn’t generally misbehave when I was in school, so I couldn’t relate to misbehaviors well
   I can count on one hand the number of times I was tardy to class in my entire school career. I never got into fights. I never was assigned detention. My parents never had to be called about my actions. This made relating with these kinds of students a seemingly insurmountable task. Because I had such a great teacher to student teach with, I didn’t what kinds of consequences to assign either.
3. I was too proud to ask for help
   I’m a guy, what can I say? :)
4. When I finally realized I needed help, I didn’t know where to go for it
   I asked the head band director I worked with for help and he didn’t know what to tell me. I left it at that and just assumed I would learn it with time. I didn’t feel any more confident going into my second year than I did my first. In fact, I felt even less confident.

Do I think those experiences helped make me a better teacher?
Absolutely! If I didn’t royally mess up, I wouldn’t have known what I needed to fix. If I had been an average or adequate teacher, or if I had very low expectations for myself, I might still be floating along. I see many teachers like that all the time. It’s as if they have never had that wake-up call.

Mine came when a friend came to clinic my band. He got finished and pretty much laid into me without mercy. I felt defeated. I felt worthless. But then he encouraged me a few days later and inspired me to learn what in the world I was doing. I began to call him and some other friends all the time and ask them how they did this, what I should try with that, and on it went. I would call sometimes two or three times a day. “Hey, I did this, I said this, and they did this. What next?”

The end of my second year of teaching was the most eye-opening two and a half months of my teaching career. I transformed my third-rate band into a group of kids who had a presentable spring concert in May. I then moved to another school district and started out my third year as the expert. I taught only sixth grade band, and they all came in not knowing what to expect. They tell me that I yelled at some of the classes on the first day. Never again. But I did explain and overexplain procedures to them. I spent the first week going over classroom procedures every single day. The first three days, that is ALL we did.

Would I just as well forget about them altogether?
No way! Do I want to forget about the pain? Sure, but not if it means losing the scars that the pain brought to me. Scars are a visual sign of points of pivotal change in our lives. Many teachers go around with tire treadmarks on their backside and think they are scars of growth. The difference is in our response to the pain. If we forget from whence we have come, we will be prone to repeating the same problems. We will be that one teacher who is in his 27th consecutive first year of teaching!

Now it’s your turn
What about you? How have you grown from your early experiences of teaching? Would you want to relive them? What have you learned? Share with us!