It’s a marathon, not a sprint
Whether you’re about to start your first year or your fortieth year teaching, remember that the school year is a marathon, not a sprint.
Though it’s about to be my fourth school year out of the high school classroom, here’s some perspective that might help:
No kid comes to school on the very first day looking to cause trouble. No kid wakes up on Day 1 and thinks, “I’m just going to watch the world burn today.” It just doesn’t happen. Even the kid who may try your last nerve as the year goes on will get to your room that first day ready to like you, and hoping that you’ll like them (especially if they have a history of being disliked by their previous teachers, they’re hungry to be loved and connected), and that you’ll make their time worthwhile. Your #1 job is to do just that: make their time in your room useful and productive, and to do your best to like them.
Each day is a chance to do better. That great reset button works for your students and for you. If you lost your cool on Monday and felt flustered, if you stumbled over your words, if you forgot someone’s name, Tuesday is a chance to try again. If a student didn’t have their homework, if they got an answer wrong, if they mouthed off, it’s a new day, and they get to try again. You’re all human, it’s ok.
Avoid the teacher’s lounge; it’s a toxic swamp of bitterness and gossip. Make friends with the custodial staff, the librarians, and the school secretaries. These are the people who run the school; the principal is only a figurehead. Find like-minded teachers on your floor or in your subject area to befriend. No one does this job alone; you’ll be better off with a buddy.
Remember that you are the grown up in the room. You are in charge. That classroom is your domain. If you believe it and act like it, your students will too. If you don’t, well, let’s just say you really need to believe it and act like it’s true until it is. Your classroom management will improve by leaps and bounds just on the basis of your attitude going in. (This doesn’t, by the way, give you leeway to be a tyrant or to yell or belittle your students. Being in charge means that you’re organized, you know everyone’s names [the sooner the better], your expectations are clearly laid out for how things will go with the lesson and with behavior, and that you hold students accountable with kindness. To paraphrase Friday Night Lights’ mantra – Firm Boundaries, Soft Hearts; Can’t Lose, and you’re all set).
Keep your classroom rules simple, and get your students to brainstorm ideas together to get them to buy in as much as is practical for their age and grade level. Here’s what I used in my classroom (and I’ve posted about it before, and attributed the original idea to my mom, who’s taught every grade but third, and who’ll have taught for 42 years when she retires in October 2017) –
Those three “rules” up there covers everything from academic dishonesty to raising your hand to speak to late work and the whole spectrum in between. Feel free to use it if it would be helpful for you.
What you do NOT need to be doing as a teacher is wasting time on nit-picky rules. Using an umbrella like this one, and having it as a poster lets you use it as a reference point when something comes up in class. Then you can move on to what really matters: the curriculum, the discussion, and connecting your material to your students’ lives in a meaningful way.
Cut yourself some slack. You won’t be Teacher of the Year right out of the gate, and that’s ok. Find a way to leave school at school as much as you can. Your home life will be better for the distance. I know the pressure will be on you to be perfect from the get-go, but attempting to get everything turned around the next day, writing comments on every piece of work that gets handed in, and staying up all night tweaking lesson plans is a sure fire way to burn out by the end of October. Use your planning period to plan and grade, and make it a habit to leave campus no later than a couple of hours after dismissal if you can. Remember that it’s ok to say no to things. You have to take care of yourself; no one else is going to do it for you. And I promise, the papers will get graded and commented on and returned. All the parent phone calls will get made. All the books will get read and annotated. It will all get done, and it’ll get done better if you’re not a sweaty wreck of humanity clinging to what’s left of your sanity when you try to do it all, fail, and then beat yourself up about it.
Your milage may vary, but don’t be surprised if you feel like you’re running on fumes in October and February. Depending on your school system’s holiday schedule, the rush of good feelings and adrenaline that propels you through the early weeks will run out and you’ll be left dragging yourself out of bed and wondering why you chose this profession in the first place. This is why taking care of yourself is so important. Drink water. Eat good food. Sleep (but don’t nap after school of you’ll regret it). Take pride in being reliable at school; the kids count on you to be there, and they don’t learn anything useful from a substitute, no matter how good that sub may be.
August/September - May/June is a long time. Remember that marathon thing I mentioned up top? It’s true. Take care of yourself. Take care of the students in your care. You can do it.
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