For those entering the teaching profession this August, I wanted to share a few of the best pieces of advice that I ever received from a master teacher:
1. To be successful, you have to like kids, or teens, or young adults, or adults, or seniors, or whoever it is that you are teaching.
Don't misunderstand me, you are not going to like all kids (or teens, or young adults, or whoever), all the time. You are going to (eventually) have preferences on which grade(s) and age(s) you like teaching the best (and it may not be what you think, pre-actual teaching). However, you do have to have a genuine like of who you are going to be teaching, even before you've met them.
If you don't like the population you are teaching, what are you doing in this profession?
2. The best teachers have a good rapport with their students.
You know the type: they are strict, but somehow fun; they have high expectations, but somehow instill the belief in every student that they can meet and even exceed those expectations; their students are engaged; their students are encouraged to think and explore ideas and arguments; and, perhaps most importantly, their students know who to go to if they need help.
Relationships are built over time. These teachers begin on the first day of class to build relationships of trust, honesty, and openness with their students. They are not to proud to say, "I don't know, but i'll find out," and they aren't too rigid to say, "This activity isn't going as planned, let's talk about why." Students need to see their teachers as people, preferably people who are fair, truthful, compassionate, and fallible.
3. New teachers need good mentors.
Most schools have some sort of mentor set-up. New teachers (brand new, or new to the school) are assigned someone that's supposed to help and support them. -- In some cases, the person assigned is awesome. In other cases, not so much.
There are two types of mentors: procedural and content. In some cases, they can be the same person.
Procedural mentors can tell you what you need to do in a given situation. Who to talk to, where to find things, and what to do is their forte. A good one will be able to tell you what the exact rules are, and how to apply them to what you are wanting to do. A bad one will tell you what they'd do with no mention of the rules and shrug if you get slapped on the wrist for breaking the rules. Find a good one.
Content mentors are masters of teaching your grade / age / subject. They can guide a new teacher through common pit-falls, curriculum muck-ups, and content questions. These teachers have a deep knowledge of their area of expertise, have seen just about everything there is to see, and are passionate about what they do. Find one, even if you have to go outside of your school to do it. They are an invaluable resource with an amazing bag of tricks to mine.
4. Have procedures and not rules.
A procedure lays out a way of doing things: what to do when students first get in the door, how to hand in papers, how to ask to go to the bathroom, how to ask for help, how to get classroom supplies, how to line up at the door, how to be properly dismissed when the bell rings, and so forth. Every single action that could happen in a classroom needs a procedure on how to handle it.
Why not rules? Because they are made to be broken.
Students sometimes see rules as challenges for what they want to try to get away with. If you make a rule that says they can't "shoot" paper wads at the trashcan from their seats, someone, at some point, is going to do that. If you say, our procedure is to walk paper wads to the trash, if a student "shoots" one from their seat, you can say, "That's not the appropriate procedure for getting trash to the trashcan, how about we practice that?" and then you can have them get up, retrieve it, sit down, get back up, and walk it to the trash, because, obviously, they need help remembering the procedure. You can't break a procedure, you can, however, practice it until you get it right.
5. Have fun.
Seriously. If you are all draggy and curmudgeon about what you are doing, the students are going to reflect that. And yes, not everything is fun, and you can be upfront with students about those times as well. However, you should enjoy what you are doing, and the students should be able to see that.
Best wishes to all the new teachers out there!
Go forth and write!
1. To be successful, you have to like kids, or teens, or young adults, or adults, or seniors, or whoever it is that you are teaching.
Don't misunderstand me, you are not going to like all kids (or teens, or young adults, or whoever), all the time. You are going to (eventually) have preferences on which grade(s) and age(s) you like teaching the best (and it may not be what you think, pre-actual teaching). However, you do have to have a genuine like of who you are going to be teaching, even before you've met them.
If you don't like the population you are teaching, what are you doing in this profession?
2. The best teachers have a good rapport with their students.
You know the type: they are strict, but somehow fun; they have high expectations, but somehow instill the belief in every student that they can meet and even exceed those expectations; their students are engaged; their students are encouraged to think and explore ideas and arguments; and, perhaps most importantly, their students know who to go to if they need help.
Relationships are built over time. These teachers begin on the first day of class to build relationships of trust, honesty, and openness with their students. They are not to proud to say, "I don't know, but i'll find out," and they aren't too rigid to say, "This activity isn't going as planned, let's talk about why." Students need to see their teachers as people, preferably people who are fair, truthful, compassionate, and fallible.
3. New teachers need good mentors.
Most schools have some sort of mentor set-up. New teachers (brand new, or new to the school) are assigned someone that's supposed to help and support them. -- In some cases, the person assigned is awesome. In other cases, not so much.
There are two types of mentors: procedural and content. In some cases, they can be the same person.
Procedural mentors can tell you what you need to do in a given situation. Who to talk to, where to find things, and what to do is their forte. A good one will be able to tell you what the exact rules are, and how to apply them to what you are wanting to do. A bad one will tell you what they'd do with no mention of the rules and shrug if you get slapped on the wrist for breaking the rules. Find a good one.
Content mentors are masters of teaching your grade / age / subject. They can guide a new teacher through common pit-falls, curriculum muck-ups, and content questions. These teachers have a deep knowledge of their area of expertise, have seen just about everything there is to see, and are passionate about what they do. Find one, even if you have to go outside of your school to do it. They are an invaluable resource with an amazing bag of tricks to mine.
4. Have procedures and not rules.
A procedure lays out a way of doing things: what to do when students first get in the door, how to hand in papers, how to ask to go to the bathroom, how to ask for help, how to get classroom supplies, how to line up at the door, how to be properly dismissed when the bell rings, and so forth. Every single action that could happen in a classroom needs a procedure on how to handle it.
Why not rules? Because they are made to be broken.
Students sometimes see rules as challenges for what they want to try to get away with. If you make a rule that says they can't "shoot" paper wads at the trashcan from their seats, someone, at some point, is going to do that. If you say, our procedure is to walk paper wads to the trash, if a student "shoots" one from their seat, you can say, "That's not the appropriate procedure for getting trash to the trashcan, how about we practice that?" and then you can have them get up, retrieve it, sit down, get back up, and walk it to the trash, because, obviously, they need help remembering the procedure. You can't break a procedure, you can, however, practice it until you get it right.
5. Have fun.
Seriously. If you are all draggy and curmudgeon about what you are doing, the students are going to reflect that. And yes, not everything is fun, and you can be upfront with students about those times as well. However, you should enjoy what you are doing, and the students should be able to see that.
Best wishes to all the new teachers out there!
Go forth and write!