Thread: Got my first job--Unsure and confused about teaching

First year teachers typically experience a great deal of stress. In college, you had the luxury of time to address individual components of education. There were lessons on classroom management, educational pyschology, curriculum & lesson planning, instructional technology etc.

When you student taught, the cooperating teacher was ultimately responsible for the class. No matter how bad your lesson was or how uncooperative the students may have been, the cooperating teacher was (eventually) there to act as a "safety net" even if he/she periodically disappeared for an extended amount of time on a long coffee break.

As a first year teacher, you now have to pull everything together. You have no cooperating teacher to catch you if you have a problem. Time is at a premium. Papers have to be graded and recorded. Lesson plans have to be written, worksheets have to be photocopied, and transparencies have to be made. There's a faculty meeting after school and a department meeting scheduled for tomorrow morning and by the way, the chess club is looking for a sponsor and your building administrator would like to know if you would like to supervise this extracurricular activity. In the meanwhile, Jesse's juvenille parole officer wants to speak to you and the department chair wants to know why you haven't filled out the survey report that was issued by the central office last Tuesday. The union rep is also looking for you because you haven't paid your annual dues.

So what do you do?

First, take a deep breath. Inhale. Exhale. Take a moment to calm down and relax.

Think about your schedule.

Prioritize. Differntiate between what has to be done and what you'd like to do. Make optimal use of your time.

In terms of lesson planning, consult your district curriculum. Use your textbook. There's nothing wrong with textbook based instruction. It can be horribly boring, I know ... but you can't go far wrong with a textbook because just about everything you need to teach should be in that book.

As time passes and you develop more experience, you'll begin teaching using other instructional resources.

Keep the lessons and units that you like. Tweak them as necessary and SAVE THEM for next year. I guarantee you that next year will be easier than this year.

The first year is always difficult because in addition to trying to pull everything together, you're also trying to find your way as a teacher.

What is your instructional style? How friendly or firm do you want to be with your students? What are your classroom expectations? These are all things that every first year teacher goes through.

When I was a first year teacher, I fell into a typical newbie mistake. I wanted my kids to like me. I wanted to be their friend.

The problem with this, as I learned from personal experience, was that you can't be their friend. If you're their friend, why are you making them take a quiz? If you're their friend, why are you jumping on Jose for not doing his homework. Cut him some slack. He had better things to do than stupid homework. For that matter, if you're their friend, why are you interrupting a conversation between Staci and Jennifer? What's up with that? Don't you think that interrupting a conversation is rude? What? You have something to teach? But I thought you were a friend ...

I basically lost control of my first year's class. During my second year, the pendulum swung the other way and I became a harsh disciplinarian. I was no longer their friend. I was "Mr. Chin the fascist tyrant." My students hated me.

It wasn't until the third year that I really began finding my balance. I wasn't a friend or a tyrant. I was something in between ... a benevolent dictator.

Classrooms are after all, not democracies. If a classroom was a democracy, nothing would ever get done. Students would vote to goof off and not do assignments.

Classrooms are also not tyrannies. Students who afraid of their tyrant teachers won't ask questions if they're confused or need assistance. Although tyrannies may be conducive to good order, they really don't provide a nurturing educational environment.

I've always thought that a benevolent dictatorship is a good thing. Benevolent dictators are concerned about their students. They listen to their class. They hear student concerns ... but at the end of the day, students still have to do what I say. Yes, I know that this lesson is boring. I'm sorry about that, but the lesson has to be taught and you students have to learn, so sit down, be quiet, and pay attention.

As far as changing a student's attitude about school - one of the hardest things I ever had to learn as a teacher is that sometimes kids fall between the cracks.

Sometimes, despite the best of intentions, students just don't want to learn. They don't want to participate. Heck, they may not even want to be in school.

It's good that you want to reach these kids - but don't feel guilty if you can't.

You're a teacher - not a social worker or a counselor.

Remember that a student's attitude wasn't shaped overnight. The student didn't wake up one morning deciding that he hates school and that he hates your class in particular.

Student attitudes develop over a long time.

The student in question may have a bad home environment. He could live in a bad neighborhood, come from a broken family, and could suffer from neglect or abuse.

The student may be academically deficient and self-concious because he can't read as well as the other students.

Attitudes are also the result of peer groups and peer pressure. The student may be overweight or geeky or have pimples or dandruff. Student peers can be horribly mean. A student may be the butt of jokes in the locker room or may be the target of one or more bullies. Popular students may snub that person. Students may whisper about that person in the hallways or cast derisive glances (or notes) in the classroom.

Teenage self confidence can be a fragile thing.

If you want to change someone's attitude - the best thing you can do is to do the best job you can as a teacher. Put your heart and soul into teaching. Be organized. Be as creative as you can given your limiations on time. If students experience difficulty, try to take the time to reteach.

The way you teach, the way you interact with your students, the respect that you garner - all of these things may eventually help change a student's attitude.

So - take a deep breath and start pulling it together. Prioritize what you need to do. Do the best job you can and remember that life is a learning experience.

Very few people graduate from college and immediately become master teachers. Although it is true that some people were born to teach, most of us had to learn through years of experience.

First year teachers look at their experienced colleagues and envy those colleagues for being so good at what they do. What they don't stop to consider is that fact that fifteen or twenty years ago - those experienced veterans were sitting in the very same boat that you're in now.

The best teachers that I've known have been the ones who go nose to grindstone and spend their entire career honing their craft.

They didn't develop their expertise in college. They developed it over years of experience.

There's no reason that you can't do the same thing.

Hang in there. Things are bound to get better.

David,

Thanks so much for your reply!

I agree with everything you said--it all makes sense. I guess I expect a lot of myself, and I need to be more patient with myself. I just don't know if I like teaching! Maybe when I have the management down, the teaching will be more enjoyable and I will feel like I am accomplishing more.

Trust me on this. I taught 17 years.

When I was a first year teacher, I literally spent HOURS writing lesson plans. I agonized over them. Writing lessons was pure torture.

Flash forward a few years and lessons were a snap. I'd write creative lessons in minutes, not hours. Part of this was because I was more experienced and part of this was because I developed the habit of filing all of the lessons I liked. Over the years I developed a wonderful file system full of interesting creative hands-on lessons.

Each year was different. Depending upon the type of students I had, I'd mix and match, pulling some lessons from previous years while skipping over others.

I'm sorry to say that when I quit teaching I gave all of my files and supplemental materials away.

Now that I'm headed back into the classroom, I'm a bit worried. In some respects, I'll be like a first year teacher since I have no supplemental supplies to speak of. On the otherhand, I've also taught for seventeen years and have confidence in my abilities as a teacher - so it'll be interesting to see how things work outl.

Regarding your situation, experience truly is the great equalizer.

I know that it's hard for you to know whether or not you like teaching right now because you're feeling lost and overwhelmed. This truly is a very typical feeling.

Take confidence in the following:

1) You have a college degree.

2) You are state certified which means that you have the academic credentials to succeed.

3) Your school district hired you. They didn't hire Joe or Tami or Samantha who may have also applied for your job. They hired YOU. The human resource director believes that you have the potential to succeed and if your building administrator signed off on your employment, your administrator also believes that you have what it takes to be a good teacher.

Have confidence in yourself. It takes a great many small steps to go from being a first year teacher to a master teacher. Part of the entire first year experience is learning how to take those initial steps.

In terms of immediate support - you most likely have the department chair. Some schools also assign a veteran teacher to mentor novice instructors. Do you have such a mentor?

Mentors can be very useful as sounding boards for discussing class management. They're also quite helpful with regards to knowing school policies and procedures. If you're having problems with a particular student, an experienced mentor can offer constructive advice for dealing with any given situation.

Are you the only first year teacher on campus? When I was a younger teacher, I used to get together with other teachers in my age group to have dinner on Friday nights. I wasn't married and didn't have a significant other. It was good to network and in talking over school related matters with my colleagues, we all learned a great deal about class management, lesson plans, thematic units etc.

It was also nice having the opportunity to vent in private about various things that bothered us about our respective jobs. (By amazing coicidence, the other two novice teachers were also men and by further coincidence, the three of us were the only male teachers on campus.)

Taking time off from work is also important. I know that you have a great deal to do but I can also tell you that work always expands to fill the amount of time you have.

If you have three hours after school to work, I guarantee you that you'll find three horus of work to do. Should you choose to come into work on a Saturday, I'm quite sure you could spend the entire Saturday buried in work.

My best advice to you is to make sure that you have time for yourself.

Make sure you get enough sleep. Eat nutritous meals ... and don't spend all of your time at work. Take time for yourself. Rest and relax.

Rule #1 is that you have to take care of yourself. If you don't take care of yourself, you won't be able to do your job.

Part of the novice teacher experience is learning how to pace yourself. This is why it's good to have a mentor and/or peer colleagues who are also going through the experience of being novice teachers.

It's not so much that misery loves company.

Having peer colleagues is beneficial because this helps you learn that you are truly not alone in these experiences.

What made you decide to go back into teaching, David? (You probably explained this before).

You are so right about the fact that work always expands to fit the time you have!! I have started to realize this and take at least an hour or two in the evening to just relax after dinner.

I think I have a mentor...we are required to be involved in the new teacher assistance program, so I should be hearing more about that soon. I can't say my department chair is really the mentor type, but I have wonderful colleagues around me who are always willing to help. I am really lucky in that aspect.

There is one other first year teacher here (a few new hires with experience, also). I don't get to see her very often because she has a child and is even busier than I am. I can't even imagine what she must be going through.

So I suppose I should count my lucky stars and be patient with myself. Thank you for the sane advice. It really helps.

I second what David says....in addition, I second what you say about patience. You've been at it a week...and that is not long enough to make such a decision. Take a longer look before you set this down.

Originally Posted by ErBear

What made you decide to go back into teaching, David?

Do you remember how I said that you have to take things easy by pacing yourself? I offer this advice because I never did this. Not only did I burn the candle at both ends, I doused it with gasoline and tossed it on a BBQ grill. (GRIN)

The end result?

I burned out.

In an earlier post on another board, I alluded to the fact that I resigned in protest to instructions that were not realistic. At my last job, I was an inner city teacher with children who were two to three grade levels deficient in all subject areas.

My building administrator told me that if these kids didn't pass the state test, I'd be terminated at year's end. (They can do this in Texas because there's no tenure. Teacher contracts are renewed on an annual basis.)

I tried to remediate these kids but was told that I couldn't do this during school time. I therefore contacted every single one of my parents and arranged to remediate small groups of students before school, after school, during lunch, and during recess.

My building administrator told me stop remediating because I was making the other teachers look bad. If I remediated, everyone would have to remediate. My school was big on standardized instruction. The teachers at my grade level wrote lesson plans together and everyone taught the same thing, the same way, at the same time in "instructional lockstep." Deviation from the norm was not acceptable and volunteering my time to remediate students who were academically deficient was considered to be a major deviation.

So I was ordered to kill my remediation program but I was still expected to somehow have a majority of my kids pass the state exam at year's end. How was I supposed to do this? Even with remediation, this goal wasn't realistic. Without remediation, the goal was absolutely hopeless.

I subsequently resigned at mid-year citing my inability to meet unrealistic administrative goals ... but that's not the whole story. The sad fact of the matter is that if I hadn't resigned I would have been placed on indefinite medical leave starting in January.

My doctor told me that my insomnia, lower back pain, migranes, ulcer, and other problems were symptoms of chronic fatique, anxiety, and depression. I was apparently depressed over my inability to achieve the goals that had been set forth by the building administrator. I had anxiety over whether or not I'd be able to keep my job at year's end. I had an ulcer because of my high anxiety.

As things turned out, most of the teachers at my former school were sacked at year's end for failure to "perform" to expectation. Some of them also lost their certification after they were caught changing student answers on the state exam. The only good news to come from all of this was that the administrator was also sacked.

I quit teaching, enrolled in a culinary school, was trained as a French chef, and eventually aquired a B&B inn.

So what do I do now?

I work 84 hours a week, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The only days I ever have off are days when I have no guests. (Last year I literally worked from February 1 through December 31 with no days off.)

In addition to being an innkeeper, I'm a volunteer firefighter. Last year I took evening classes at a fire training center in Harrisburg - working towards certification as a volunteer firefighter. I can pull a hose, throw a ladder, don an airpack, and conduct a search and rescue in a building filled with noxious gas and smoke. (I actually did this a month ago and threw out one of my knees when I tripped on a pile of magazines that an elderly woman had left on her basement stairs.)

Not only am I an innkeeper and volunteer firefighter, but I'm also the chairperson of the local historical committee. In mycopious free time I'm an aspiring novelist and a soap crafter of old fashioned oil & lye soaps as well as contemporary melt & pour soaps.

My work habits haven't changed. I'm just in a different line of work. The only other major difference is that I'm self-employed. The goals I set for myself are realistic and I generally dont' have any problems sleeping at night because I'm usually physically fatigued by day's end.

Last February I got an unexpected e-mail from a former third grade student who had somehow tracked me down. I don't know how she found me because if you google my name, you'll get over 16 million hits.

This former student wrote to tell me that she was now a college senior about to graduate from a school of education. When asked why she wanted to be a teacher, she told the application committee about me and said that I had changed her life.

I was flattered by her e-mail. I was also stunned. One doesn't expect to have such a profound life changing influence over an eight year old child.

After mulling it over for several months, I decided that I was ready to go back into education. I'm relatively well rested compared to the way I was back in 2001. I still have a valid teaching certificate from Texas. To be certified in Pennsylvania, I only need to pass the Praxis I and II tests. I've already taken and passed the Praxis I. All that remains is the Praxis II.

As to what my future will be like - I hope that this next time around, I'll do a better job at pacing myself.

I lasted 17 years before I burned out the first time around. I figure if I can last as long this second time around, I'll be ready for retirement.

No muss, no fuss.

As long as I can find a school that has realistic expectations for teacher performance, I don't anticipate any problems.

Knock on wood ...

Good adive David. I would only add one thing. Get on a regular exercise program. Seriously it will help.

My first semester teaching was hell. I went into a classroom in January, right out of student teaching. The original teacher walked out of the classroom one morning and told the principal that she would quit if she had to go back. He sent her to an empty Kindergarten classroom to aleviate the over crowded K classrooms. The room she left was hell to say the least.

Every teacher has high emotions and a lot of self doubt their first years. It is tough. Jump on here and talk whenever you want.

I might suggest a good read if you can find any time in a first year hectic schedule, but seriously, you could probably finish it in a weekend.

It is

Losing My Faculties, by Brendan Halpin

Great book about those first tough years, truly inspirational and just a fun read.

Good luck in your first years!

Thank you Mark, Johnboy and Banky. I am really interested in reading that book. After I read October Sky (which I am teaching in a month or two), that is.

I have had a lot of ups and downs already...today was pretty good. I guess I need to just wait for things to even out a little bit and settle down. Then I will get a better idea of how well this profession suits me. I do already care about my students a great deal...I really want them to succeed and think all of them can if they apply themselves. Realistically, not all will, but I think being positive is important and helps keep one sane, also.