Being a new teacher is tough. I knew this coming in. When I would tell anyone about my new job, the response would always be either "Just keep your head above water" or "Bless your heart." I heard horror stories from new teachers and many, many stories about crying on the way home from work.
I also wasn't going in blind. I have been lucky enough to have a variety of experiences through my education and student teaching to show me exactly what a classroom was like. Still, though, I spent my first few weeks stumbling through lessons and meetings and training. I would return to my apartment and have no energy to move from the couch or the bed.
The good news? It's already getting better. Why? Because I took a deep breath and started thinking logically about things. And here is what I know so far:
-I cannot teach in isolation. My best teaching moments have come from collaboration. I can step into another classroom and ask questions. I can email a former classmate and ask what he/she is doing in class that is working. I have to stop putting the burden on myself.
-Going along with the last lesson, why am I always trying to reinvent the wheel? For some reason, I always feel like I have to do lessons or pose questions that I haven't done before. This is so ridiculous. Being a creative teacher doesn't mean every single day in every lesson. Sometimes I can just pull from a binder or a former lesson or the Internet. I promise my kids won't know the difference.
-I have to leave work at work. Teaching is now a big part of who I am, but it isn't the only part. I can't work 24/7. I've tried. It makes me a worse teacher. I'm starting to leave my school laptop at school along with those piles of papers. That doesn't mean I won't ever have to stay late or come in early to catch up. The work is impossible to fit into a school day. But when I leave the school, I have to really leave or I get stuck and stressed and crazy.
-I also need to do things to force me to pull my mind elsewhere. I am constantly thinking about the kid that is failing my 2nd period or copies I need to have run by Wednesday or how to review for the next vocab test. It interrupts my sleep and my meals and my conversations with friends. Luckily, my roommate reminded me of this when she bought me a paint-by-number set last week. This was something I started doing a few years ago when my mom suggested it. Unlike yoga or television or even reading, this takes a lot of my concentration and I release other things on my mind. I've also been watching Netflix when I go to the gym recently and by concentrating on running the elliptical and following the story of the show I'm watching I can sometimes avoid "school brain" that way too.
-I do not have to do things exactly how other teachers are doing them. If there's one thing I've learned in all the school environments I've been in is that everyone teaches differently. And that doesn't mean that some are right and some are wrong. I have to find my own teaching persona. I complained so many times about all the teaching philosophy statements we had to write in college, but I now understand why they pushed this. They wanted us to discover our strengths as teachers and what we felt strongly about. It's been so easy this year to think I should do the spelling worksheet on Wednesday that all the other classes are doing. Is it required? No. Does it make sense to me? No. So why would I do it? I can do my own thing. It's okay to be different.
-Kids are mean. It's just a fact of life. They are mean to me. They are mean to each other. And I can't change that. I'm no miracle worker. Sometimes, though, I can make a student think about his or her words. I can compliment a student that is being bullied to show they matter. I don't have to take the things they say about me to heart. The opinions of 12-year-olds should never affect my own self-esteem.
-Last, but most important of all my lessons, is that you have to find humor in teaching. Yes, kids are sometimes mean, but they are also sometimes hilarious. It's ok to laugh with them or act a little silly sometimes. I can't take everything so seriously all the time.
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