About this Blog
From DC public school student to teacher
The first year teaching is brutal. For almost everyone. But I can’t shake the feeling that it shouldn’t be this hard.
What do you wish someone would have told you or taught you how to do before your first year teaching?
For me,
1) I wish someone would have demonstrated how to effectively use betterlesson.com and tfa.net and made me promise to never create my own materials from scratch.
2) I wish someone had worked with me to develop the mentality of “I am the adult in charge of this classroom, and I need to maintain that authority in order for my students to learn.” I’m not sure how this can be done, exactly, but it’s so tempting to want to please or appease your students in the first few months of teaching before you realize that it hurts your effectiveness as a teacher.
This may not be a new thought, but it needs to be said. Institute is a pile of garbage. It serves one primary purpose, and there’s no close second–getting you used to be completely and utterly miserable. It certainly wasn’t for the students. I was supposed to cram a year of algebra into about fifteen…
read more »Oh, I wanted to. September sucked. October sucked. November sucked. And when I say sucked, what I mean is every day was truly awful. Not just kind of bad. Truly awful. The depression was overwhelming. Just getting up in the morning was a struggle. Has it really gotten that much better? I’m not sure….I think…
read more »So Induction starts Wednesday, and I’m excited to let the brainwashing begin. I’m two years out of college, so probably less likely than some to be susceptible, but then again I’m pretty susceptible to brainwashing in general if commercials are any indicator (KFC Double Down! I’m going to buy that tonight!) But here’s my question.…
read more »A few days ago, I got an email from Adam Geller, who is apparently the founder of Teach for Us. He directed me to Kerry Folan, who recently created a site called teacherlove.org for people to post stories about their favorite teachers. I was told I would have $100 donated to me through Donors Choose…
read more »From the card my kids gave me on the my last day: You are awesome, Mr. G! Thank you 4 being here. Sad to see you go but hope to see you again! PS You will be missed. I will miss you pleas [sic] come and visit us. We’ll miss you! Come back soon! Thanks…
read more »The Boston Charter School I worked at last year employed something called “AP for All”–in order to graduate, every student was required to take AP US History junior year and AP English senior year. Jay Matthews, the education reporter for the Washington Post, is also a huge believer in the importance of AP courses and…
read more »A lot of incoming CMs starting blogs are over-the-top crazy enthusiastic about teaching. Which is great. But I worry about the confidence that many of these newbies seem to have. There’s this mentality along the lines that “the only reason my students haven’t achieved is because their previous teachers have held low expectations for them.…
read more »You are very brave. In my experience, it’s hard enough to manage behavior when the class is in English. But in another language? Doubly hard. So here’s a question I’m posing: is it possible to be an excellent Spanish teacher without being a little terrifying? As a student myself and as a school employee, I…
read more »…to fix a broken relationship with a student. That’s what I’ve come to believe. But it requires a lot from a teacher. Patience. Persistence. Willingness to start fresh. Faith. I have one student that I work with that tested my belief in the nature of relationships. In a moment of frustration, I snapped at…
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