Dear first year teacher,

One of the reasons I started blogging was because I sincerely love helping other teachers. If I could spend my days talking through curriculum and bouncing ideas off of other teachers, I would be in heaven. Really.
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That’s why I love days like today. My alma mater contacted me about being a mentor at their New Teacher Academy, and I jumped at it. I honestly love most professional development, but being able to be around new teachers is exciting. They’re so passionate and fired up that it is contagious.
Talking through their classroom management plans and first day lessons, I kept spinning through all the missteps of my first year. I fell into the classic “coulda-woulda-shoulda” situation. So here’s the “shoulda.”
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What I Wish i would have known...

• Transitions: Something that I astronomically overlooked as a young teacher was transitions. The time lost in those moments between activities must have accumulated to hours of potential time and positively destroyed any sense of pacing there might have been in those patchwork lessons.
  • “Veteran” Tip: When working through lesson planning, think about the logistics. What can they do while a computer is turning on or logging in? How can I group them quickly and effectively? What supplies do I need and how can I distribute them without causing chaos? The pragmatic part of lesson planning was too easy to overlook. Be intentional.
• Relationships: I am wrestling this one out still. By the end of the year, I feel confident in the bonds I have made with kids, but it’s always a slow build. Each fall, I tell myself that this needs to be better, but it wasn’t even on my radar as a young teacher.  I was so buried in content and planning that the value of investing in relationships eluded me, and I regret some of those missed connections.
  • “Veteran” Tip: There are so many strategies to be intentional about building relationships. Today, I shared the 2 X 10 strategy – which is a well-structured method of making those deep connections with students. Spend two minutes talking to a student for 10 consecutive days (during work time, at the end of class, before the bell). This is obviously not practical for all students, but it works wonders on those students you identify as challenging. A more practical tool is the attendance question. Pick out a general question that everyone can answer, and when you call their name for attendance, they answer. You can follow up for more detail, ideally switching kids each day. You can very quickly learn a lot about the kids in your care.
• Priorities: Time is a precious commodity, especially for teachers. As a new teacher, I misplaced these priorities. Prime example: independent reading. My school is structured in 50 minute periods, so an investment of 10 minutes a day seemed completely unreasonable. Experience taught me that your priorities have to drive how that time is spent. I want my kids to be strong readers and writers, so 10 minutes of reading practice is never wasted time.
  • “Veteran” Tip: Any new teacher will quickly learn how easy it is to be overwhelmed by all the different directions we get pulled in. One corner is shouting for more leadership instruction, another screams for collaborative problem solving, and about a 100 more stand on their own soapboxes speaking their own truth. Every one is valid, but everyone has to build their own soapbox. My suggestion is to be intentional about choosing how to invest time. Sit down, write a SHORT list and plan accordingly. Choose your own teaching destiny based on their list.
• Ask for Help: One embarrassing recollection I have from my first year is how I interacted with veteran teachers. I came in guns blazing, wrecking ball-esque, and convinced I had all the ideas to fix the world of education. As a veteran teacher, I recognize how off putting this must have been and hold it responsible for some of the tension I faced that year. I was saved by a receptive collaborative team, but I would never suggest this approach to a new teacher. Veteran teachers NEED to hear new ideas (said the most rigid veteran teacher I know), but I should have respected my position more.
  • “Veteran” Tip: Observe the relationships of those you’ll work with. Take the time to feel out the personalities and the rough edges. In other words, know your audience. Make it easy on yourself and embrace what they offer, but hold true to those priorities. When you have something you love, share it nonchalantly. Send an email with a “take it or leave it” tagline. Trust me. Sometimes what you have is exactly what they’re looking for. (Even if they’re difficult curmudgeons like me.)

 
And that’s the highlights. The list could be endless if I were to dig into the many mistakes of my first year, but after spending the day with new teachers, these are the ones resonating. These are the ones I want to scream from my own soapbox.

​And here I am.