Overview:
Old and new teachers need inspiration for the upcoming school year.
A Survival Primer for New Teachers
Dear New Teacher,
It was John Steinbeck who wrote in his novel East of Eden, “…the repository of art and science is the school, and the schoolteacher shields and carries the torch of learning and of beauty.”
This first year, while you are mired in lesson planning, meetings, assessing, supervision duty, club advising, coaching, calling home, counseling, and the myriad hair balls that choke up the life of a teacher, grasp firmly onto the stark and ominous reality of who and what you are:
The champion and protector of civilization.
Almost single-handedly, and often in the face of great resistance, you and your peers of dauntless educators, armed with only an intrinsic desire to save humanity and have summers off, stand between societal order and a bottomless chasm of idiocy and endless puerility. You are the Night Watch, standing on the wall, preventing winter from coming.
In order to help you protect the rest of us from morphing into a screaming horde of the undead, I offer these humble tips which have been helpful during my 34 years of teaching high school.
On survival:
- It’s a marathon, not a sprint. If you’re going to make it past the five-year burnout threshold and go long for 30-plus years, then you have to set boundaries. And because your heart’s in it, you will feel the pull, and often the unwarranted obligation to grade and plan into the wee hours of the night, to volunteer to chaperone every dance, to attend or supervise athletic events, in short to ignore yourself, your friends, and your family for the good of the school and students – and guilt will drive you. The guilt that comes from within when you think you’re doing less than you should, and the guilt that comes from without when your administrator asks you to give up the next five Saturdays to tutor or supervise Saturday school. Be aware, new teacher, there are those who would think you’re a sucker and will come to you often to perform extra voluntary duties. Say “yes” to your family; they come first. (Oh, and by the way, not married with kids? Not to worry, Steinbeck also wrote, “the teacher was the matrimonial catch of the countryside.” So there.)
- Drowning is a lonely business. Ask for help; it’s not a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of strength and determination to do what’s right for your students and for your own sanity. One of my colleagues, a 34 year veteran Science teacher explained to me the other day that it was one of the most important lessons she had to re-learn recently. As a veteran teacher, classroom management is second nature to her and she rarely, if ever, has behavioral issues, until recently when she was assigned a particularly difficult class. She used every tool in her behavioral modification toolbox, but found it wasn’t enough, so she asked for help from her administrators who quickly stepped in to provide a variety of support. The thing was though, she had to ask, and if you don’t ask, the help and support may not come.
- Time and tide wait for no man. Your prep time is holy and sacred time and should be used for what is was designed, to prepare engaging lessons and to carefully assess student work. If you give up your prep time, guess what? You’ll be grading and prepping into the wee hours of the night and on weekends (see #1 above). You will be asked to burn your prep time in a million different ways. Some of them you shouldn’t do (covering another teacher’s class because they are short on subs or watering the azalea’s in the west hall), some of them you should do (scheduled meetings with parents and students), and some of them you have to do (IEP meetings). Sometimes you will even feel like collapsing on the floor and falling asleep. Whatever you decide, be alert to the constant encroachment on your prep time and protect it diligently and with extreme prejudice.
- You’re on a heroes’ quest. While we know that you, like Joseph Campbell’s hero, must stand alone when staring down the beast of ignorance and darkness that threatens your classroom, you must also have a guide, a Mentor to help show you the ways of the force. Do it quickly: find another seasoned teacher whom you admire and start asking questions – teachers love the monomania of meting out wisdom to unschooled neophytes and will be more than happy to proffer sage advice. (And that sentence is darn good proof of that.) Invite them to an off-campus location and offer to buy them a beverage (don’t worry, they’ll pay because they too have lived on the slave wages of a first-year teacher). This Obi-Wan, this Vasudeva, this Athena will be invaluable in showing you the ways of ordering supplies, of managing difficult students, of organizing exiguous time, and of slaying the dragon of indifference and sloppy handwriting.
On Classroom Management
- It’s hard to hit a moving target. You have to serpentine through the classroom, and like a stealthy ninja, attack apathy, unwillingness, and furtive cell phone use with an alarming immediacy whenever it rears its ugly head. The more time you spend among your students instead of in front of them will go a long way in managing behavior in your classroom.
- Cry in the bathroom. Suck it up, buttercup. Besides, you probably already did enough crying during your student teaching/internship stint. Keeping negative emotional reactions to a minimum in the classroom will help you control stressful situations with both students and parents (and the occasional tyrannical administrator). Be confident. Keep your cards close to your chest. Don’t argue with students. Give them a choice, then follow through (see #7 below.) Don’t raise your voice, keep it calm and steady, like you’re talking down an angry badger. Students need to know that you are a rock, that they cannot get a negative emotional reaction from you no matter how many times they tell you you are fat and ugly and mix your metaphors.
- Use the nuclear option. Avoid ultimatums, but if you do issue one (as we are all wont to do from time to time against our better judgment) you MUST, and let me repeat this MUST follow through with it, even if you have to bring your classroom to a screeching halt. Did you threaten to call home? You better do it – that day. Did you threaten to call the principal? You better do it – before you do anything else. Did you say you would confiscate a cell phone, you can’t back down – just do it! Moving the line that they aren’t supposed to cross will, in essence, eliminate the line and before you know it unruly students will be walking all over you and well-behaved students will have lost respect for you. The ultimatum can work, but only if students know that you will follow through immediately and 100% of the time. But use it rarely, it’s a good way to back yourself into a corner.
The best piece of advice I ever got was on my very first day as a student teacher. The principal was walking me up the stairs to my assignment when he suddenly stopped me on the landing between floors. It was during class time and the hallways were quiet and abandoned. He looked pensively at the ceiling, likely carefully choosing the next thing he was going to say. He sighed and looked down at me and said in almost a whisper, “Reputation, reputation, reputation.” I nodded, pondering the depth of the water I was about to wade into. He turned, his words still hanging in the quiet stairwell, and lead me up to the 8th grade Language Arts classroom I was to eventually take over. Walking up that quiet stairwell I considered Michael Cassio’s words as I still do to this very day, understanding that the allusion was a warning; your good reputation is your shield. Protect it, because it will provide you with the kind of autonomy needed to be an exceptional and highly regarded teacher.
So look ahead. You’re going to make it.
Your students will come to respect the firm, fair, and steady hand of your authority. Your administrators will come to respect the thoughtful, measured, and fair objectivity of your decision making. Your conscience will appreciate the calm, purposeful, and skillful preparation that subdues Sunday night panic.
And yes, you will face many Kraken, Terminators, Cyclopes, Darth Vaders, Grendels (and their mothers!), and hordes of White Walkers in the days and years to come. But you will defeat them all – you are Jason and Sarah Connor and Odysseus and Luke and Beowulf and Arya. You are TEACHER – Defender of the Light, Protector of the Truth, Champion of Mankind. You will change the world “to make mild / A rugged people, and thro’ soft degrees / Subdue them to the useful and the good.”
No one else will do it. No one else has the guts to. No one else but you.
Patrick Mooney is a recently retired 34-year secondary English teaching veteran in Northern California, with a bachelor’s in English and an MEd in Educational Management and currently serves on his local school board. Patrick has written for a variety of publications on the topics of education, writing instruction, mentoring new teachers, raising children, and ski racing. He is also the dad of three fine boys.
