Ten Tips for First Year Teachers

 

The first year in the trenches can be overwhelming, to say the least. You come out feeling prepared only to realize very quickly there’s still lots to learn. You’re on your own now though, so leaning on your advisors and host teacher from your internship are no longer an option, particularly if you landed a gig half way around the world from where you studied. Here are ten general tips I wish someone had given me my first time out of the gate.

Find a pal or two you can trust.

I don’t mean to sound like a pessimist, but reality is reality. Office politics is just as rampant in schools as it is in any other office setting. Fly under the radar for a while until you get a grasp on who’s trustworthy and who’s not. Then form a professional alliance to give yourselves a safe haven for venting and admitting weaknesses it might not be in your best interests to admit to an administrator or professional mentor. (More on that in a bit.) Suffice it to say, find some friends. If one of them happens to be on your grade level, even better.

Stay off the high maintenance bulletin board bandwagon.

There are plenty of durable designs that can go the distance for the entire year with only an occasional swap out of art work or title lettering. The key is using them in a way that is functional, so students don’t get bored. You also don’t want to look like a slacker if you’re trying to land a permanent gig, so putting up something lame and leaving it there to fade and look dated is out too. Cloth is a great way to go to resist fading and avoid excess staple holes. Bulletin boards for older grades can often stretch for an entire quarter at least, depending on how long a particular theme goes. Mixing and matching these with a few of the year long boards will help keep your sanity. Leave the late night apple tracing to those who have no desire for a life. Even if you eventually decide you want to be included in that group, you’ll have plenty more to worry about in the first few years. Trust me.

Choose your mentor(s) carefully.

If you eventually decide you want to make classroom décor and high maintenance management systems your entire life, fine. But don’t let an ill chosen mentor who’s never managed to find a proper life – work balance make you feel bad if that’s not the lifestyle you’re choosing for yourself. Even if it is, you likely won’t be able to do so for the first few years. There’ll be way too much on your plate to tackle with regards to basic skills and experience.

Everyone wants the mentor who’s found balance between work at home, rocks the classroom without making it their life, and seems to have everything streamlined with extreme precision while not having a high maintenance professional routine. The problem? Most of those people know when enough is enough and aren’t necessarily going to be among those who sign up to mentor a first year teacher. It’s certainly not always the case, but a fair number of Betty Brown Nosers find their way onto the school district’s mentor list. Betty Brown Nosers whose constant sucking up to the powers that be over the years have provided them with a fair amount of weasel room and political clout. Fair? Maybe not. Accurate? Absolutely.

I’m not saying don’t ever trust your mentor. I’m not even saying there aren’t phenomenal people out there who will be willing to step up to the plate for you. You might even be lucky enough to have a mentor who also ends up being on your pal list eventually. But many school districts require you to have one for the first one or two years of your teaching career. While it’s true they are there to guide and support you, it’s also true that they are there at the school’s request and have earned enough of the administration’s trust to be selected for the job. It’s not much of a stretch to assume their loyalties will be divided at best, which means admitting certain weaknesses or professional difficulties could come back to haunt you at contract extension time. Choose carefully.

The secretary can be your ally. If you let her.

It can be very easy to get into a negative long term relationship with the downstairs secretary. Particularly if you’re the newbie and all the other teachers on staff have had years to develop a relationship where they feel comfortable asking favors. That being said, you may notice a fair number of educators treat the para-pros and support staff like second class citizens, or worse, non entities. I’ve had to work with a fair number of school secretaries in my career, and I can only honestly think of two that were nearly impossible to work with. The rest were people I grew to have fantastic relationships with through trust building and mutual respect. Sometimes a situation will present itself where you are able to develop a camaraderie right off the bat. If it does, take the opportunity. You likely won’t be sorry.

Document all chats with administrators.

Even if you have to take a legal pad to each meeting and start each conversation by quickly jotting down the date, time and attendee names, this can really be what saves your neck should anything arise later on where you have a different version of events than those in charge. If you can afford a voice recorder, great. Otherwise a pad and paper or some peel off Post-It notes you can stick in a file will do just fine. You can always collate and key them in later if the situation warrants it. In my entire teaching career, I’ve had to use this information less than five times. At least one of them was before I was wise enough to have been documenting. Like I said, these are tips I wish I had been given. We all wish it could be about student motivation and the coolest lessons ever all of the time. For those times when it isn’t, just have your protective ducks in a row.

Streamline your sub system.

Unless you’re a super hero, you will need a substitute teacher more than once each year. Having a few things streamlined and consistent will keep things easier for both of you. A binder or reference folder with critical information, check lists and procedures is a great place to start. So is a set of hanging files with any seat work handouts for each day of the week in day by day folders. Teachers editions should all be in an easy to find location, and a selection of time filler activities and always allowed classroom games is a nice gesture. Remember, you work in the same room every day. Even if you have a repeat sub, they are in different classrooms every day. They also may only get to your room once every two-three months, after which time you may have made changes. It’s very disorienting to be a substitute teacher. Making their job as seamless as possible just makes things easier while you’re gone, as well as when you return.

One main classroom helper a day is more than enough.

I’ve seen some amazingly difficult classroom duty systems over the years, folks. Systems that take an entire bulletin board of rotating wheels and clips to display, and a notebook to document. I don’t know whose bright idea it was to set the industry standard as different helpers for every single duty in the classroom and rotate them out every day, but I do know that it has never worked for me. I pick one helper a day, and if there’s something they can’t get to or need help with, they get to pick who helps them out. I start at the top of the classroom list, and work down every day to the next person. If they are absent, they miss their turn until it comes around again. Done. This is also easier for those students who have a hard enough time keeping the important rules and procedures straight, let alone a daily chore chart that’s too complicated for even the teacher to remember without a reference book.

Use your free periods with precision efficiency.

This one plays out differently, depending on where you work. You may only have one free period per week, or a couple a day. This is largely a result of the number of specialists your school district is able to hire for things such as art, music, PE and foreign languages. Whether or not you have aides or other support staff to shop for supplies or make copies also factors into the game. While there’s nothing wrong with taking a break occasionally, I like to use these blocks of time for basic classroom housekeeping such as paper grading, art framing, running off of homework copies and getting set up for a science lab or art project when the children return. Last period on Fridays is a particular gift, as it allows you to get completely organized for Monday morning and the rest of the following week without having to stay late or come in on the weekend. It can be extremely easy to get sucked into grade level or mentor meetings on your free periods. Fight hard to keep them open for things that benefit your classroom’s functioning directly. Sliding the other meetings until after school will help ensure they are kept as brief as possible

Enlist room parents early and often.

You’ll need to tread as carefully here as you do with a mentor for obvious political reasons. Aside from that, I’ve often found parents to be my staunchest allies against political mine fields I might otherwise have fallen prey to. Intense classroom projects and implementing new procedural systems are enormous projects even with paid aides, which I’ve rarely had. Involved parents can help you with overwhelming tasks, pitch supply ideas to the PTO and drum up volunteers for field trips you might not otherwise be able to take with only two chaperones. (Think water park, jungle hike or glass bottom submarine.)

Operate in bulk.

This can come in just as handy in a classroom as it can when stocking a pantry. Certain items will be needed throughout the school year, so it just makes sense to get a large enough supply to last a while. Construction paper, index cards, glue, craft supplies, various individualized math quiz sheets for on the fly review, classroom checklists, file folders, bandanas and more come to mind.

Got another great tip for a first year teacher? Are you a first year educator struggling to make your mark? Sound off in our comment section and join the conversation.

Photo Credit: Chicago 2016