'Twas the night before the FIRST first day
ADVICE FOR THOSE STARTING OUT AND THOSE WHO HOPE TO REMAIN
Many of us became teachers because we liked school, and we were good at it. We didn’t mind staying up until 2:00 a.m. to make sure the final paper was finished and perfect. A week or so later, it came back with an A on it. What a wonderful experience: a finite task with clear, unmistakable feedback.
Teaching isn’t like that. You can do it 24-hours a day and never be done. Your lessons will never be perfect. If you’re a true perfectionist, they will never even be complete. And it may take 20 years before you get any meaningful feedback on how effective you are. I began teaching in 1995. In 2007, a student I had during the second year of my career found me on Facebook and wrote, “I just wanted to apologize for being such an asshole in your class. You were an awesome teacher.”
I tell you this not to discourage you and not to congratulate myself (although, I ain’t gonna lie, it’s extremely flattering when former students go out of their way to find you).
I tell you to set the stage for some advice I want to give you that I wish someone had given me. I don’t know if I would have accepted it at the time. I was pretty arrogant in my younger days. Actually, I’m still pretty arrogant, but I think I have better reason to be now.
Take it for what it’s worth—
1. Set time limits. There will always be a stack of ungraded papers or a lesson to plan or a journal to read. The work ends when you decide it ends. Decide on a time when the work will end—whether it’s completed or not—and stick to it. If your teaching day is over at 3:30, allow yourself no more than two, maybe three hours of work beyond that. Set the timer on your phone, and when it goes off, put your red pen down and step away from your desk. Go to the gym. Go home and play with your kids/pets/husband. Meet up with a friend for a drink or a run.
2. Learn to say “no.” As a group, teachers are extremely altruistic. This is usually a good thing. Unfortunately, if you always say “yes,” and if you always do a good job at whatever it is you said “yes” to, you will become the default person everyone asks to do whatever it is they don’t want to do or what they can’t get anyone else to do. Eventually you will begin to resent it, and that is the beginning of burnout. Be a team player, say “yes” more often than not, but don’t allow yourself to be abused.
3. Take your sick days! I know that it is next to impossible to write a lesson plan that will work in your absence. I know your students will turn into swirling vortices of evil if you are not there. I know that you have no control over the competence of the substitute teacher you get. Get over it. You’re going to get sick, and you have to allow yourself to get well, or you will remain sick and get sicker and eventually be hospitalized. You don’t know misery until you’re holed up in a hospital bed with no voice and no energy and the secretary of the school is on the other end of your cell phone wondering where your roster is. TAKE. YOUR. SICK DAYS.
4. Keep a journal. It is easy to get so caught up in how far you have to go that you lose sight of how far you have come. If you keep a record, you can look back and see your progress. You don’t have to do this in writing. Use the voice recorder on your phone or a digital recorder from an electronics store. Download the audio files to your computer and label them chronologically, e.g., today’s file would be named 20130818. Trust me—I wish I had done this.
5. Document everything!! Unless there’s a record of it, it never happened. If you get an e-mail in which someone has agreed to do something or has thanked you for doing something or has let you off the hook for something, PRINT IT OUT AND FILE IT. When you call a parent, even if you get no answer, make a note: “Called Mrs. Foster at 4:02 p.m. No answer.” If you reprimand a kid, make a note: “9/17/13, 1:30 p.m. Had short chat with Bianca about stabbing Michael with pen. We agreed she should stop.” I recommend making an index card for each of your students. On the blank side, put his/her name. On the lined side, keep your documentation.
6. Create three file folders. One should be labeled “Official Stuff.” In this, you should keep copies of evaluations and other, you know, official stuff. The second should be labeled “Stuff from Colleagues.” In this keep cards and letters you receive from your peers. Finally, and most importantly, create a file called “Stuff from Kids.” Into this file you put invitations to sporting events and plays, holiday cards, thank-you notes, gift tags, and the myriad tokens of appreciation that you will accumulate. This is the file you pull out during the darker moments of your career and weep over while trying to shove your head into the bottom of a Jim Beam bottle.
7. Cultivate a social life. I lived alone with two cats when I taught. I had five classes and a year-long an extracurricular responsibility. On the weekends, I was too tired to go out. Little by little, I became estranged from all my friends. One Friday night, I had something of an out-of-body experience while standing in the school’s auditorium with the cast of the play I was directing. I realized that this group of 16-year olds had become my peer group. I don’t care how tired you think you are, get together with people your own age. Get a drink, see a movie, watch The Real Housewives of Somewhere—just make regular opportunities for yourself to engage in adult conversations.
8. Avoid the negative people on your faculty. This can be difficult because they are often the most entertaining and are typically in charge of organizing the Friday afternoon attitude adjustment gatherings at the local adult beverage establishment (to which I definitely recommend you go). This group will suck you in, the same way the popular kids in high school did. They seem cool; they mock those in authority; they say really funny, albeit cruel, things about the kids. And they represent everything that is wrong with the profession. They have stopped growing as professionals and can only feel good about that by condemning those who continue to try. Stay away from these people if you can help it. If you can’t, do everything you can not to allow their cynicism to poison you.
9. Find a mentor. I don’t mean the person your department chair told you was your (capital M) Mentor. I mean a faculty member with more experience than you whose teaching philosophy is one you wish to emulate, who brings out the better angels of your nature, who is generous with time and resources. Now, if you are one of the few individuals who finds all these qualities in the same person that your department chair assigned to you, realize that you are blessed. If not, go hunting.
10. Ask for help. You may not feel comfortable asking people at your school. One of the bitter ironies of teaching is that we punish our rookies their incompetence even as we try to instill in our students the belief that school is a safe place to take risks. If your school doesn’t encourage a culture of professional inquiry and growth, go outside of it. Join an online community like the Center for Teaching Quality (www.teachingquality.org ) where you can start or join conversations on issues specific to your needs. Alternatively, join professional organizations, all of which have online discussion boards where you can solicit ideas. Most subject matter areas have an association with elementary, middle school and high school divisions. Here are a few:
· Social Studies: www.ncss.org
· Drama: www.schooltheater.org
If all else fails, there’s an “Ask me anything” link on this blog. I went into education because I have a pathological need to feel useful. Reach out to me. If I can’t give you the answer, I can probably think of someone who can.
