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5 words of wisdom for first-year teachers

Disclaimer: All information posted is solely my own thoughts and opinions. I do not speak on behalf of my employers, educational institutions, or professional organizations past, present, or future. 

A grad student in the middle of her program reached out to me the other day and asked if I had any words of advice for first year teachers. I thought about it for a couple days, about what I wish I knew before I started. My first year was incredibly difficult for many factors that I won’t get into here, but I know I’m not alone. There were a lot of things I did or didn’t do that made that year more difficult than it needed to be. These are the 5 things I wish I could tell myself at the beginning of my first year of teaching.

1. Find your network

Do not go it alone! Start to build up your network of people you can trust and that you feel comfortable going to for advice or solidarity. One of the most wonderful things about this field is the community of terrific people it attracts. You will need a small network of more experienced professionals and also fellow first-year teachers who are going through the experience at the same time you are.

 I have teacher-friends that I text regularly to ask if they have experienced a similar situation and how they handled it  or just because I want to be seen and heard and I know they understand! 

I also recommend having a person or two at your school site that you know you can trust and go to for site-related questions. There is a lot of school-specific protocol and procedure that can be a steep learning curve and you want to have someone you can quickly reach out to for answers. 

2. Protect your time 

In a new school and with our first teaching job, we want to say yes to everything. We want to be a team player and compensate for our lack of knowledge or experience with an attitude of enthusiasm. You will get asked to do all kinds of “extra” duties on top of your classroom, guaranteed! My first year, some of the things I said yes to as a gut reaction that I wish I hadn’t were planning my school’s annual health fair and being my grade-level representative for the Instructional Leadership Team.

Your job will be demanding and time-consuming and you deserve to put all of your cognitive energy during your working hours towards the job you are being paid to do. There will absolutely be things that come up outside of that, but do your absolute best to establish and keep those boundaries from the beginning. Do not set the tone for being the person who says yes to everything, it is a short term gain that will be an uphill battle in the future. People may make comments or project their own insecurity or frustration onto you and say things like “well when I was in my first year…” but try your best to let it roll off. Saying that you need to focus on your students and your classroom is a net positive for your school and for you. 

Depending on your school, you may be meeting with other teachers in your grade level on a regular basis. Do not get caught up in trying to match their instructional pace! This took me a long time to learn. Take what they are doing and modify, modify, accommodate. You are trained on how to adapt the general education curriculum for your students and especially if you are teaching multiple grade levels, it is a lot of behind-the-scenes work. 

3. Invest in select items, a good lesson does not equal more money! 

Depending on what items you inherit in your classroom or what your budget is for materials, your first year of teaching can be very expensive. With social media giving us a look into other people’s classrooms that are stocked with fun games, in-tact materials and Pinterest-worthy setups, it can feel like we need to put our whole paycheck back into our classrooms. As difficult as it is, try to avoid spending lots of money, especially as a way to compensate for feeling inadequate. Instead of buying new books for every unit, pick a select few that you know you’ll want in your library over the years and use YouTube for free read-alouds for the rest. 

Try to use your network to borrow things you aren’t ready to buy–ask other teachers, the speech therapists or the librarian if they have anything you can use. If your local community has a “Buy Nothing” Facebook group, that can be a great place for teachers to ask for things. When my school had a pirate-themed day recently, I used my neighborhood Facebook group to get a bunch of pirate things without making an expensive trip to Party City for things I probably wouldn’t use again.  

It can be tempting to go to TeachersPayTeachers or Pinterest for everything, but always plan with your objective first, you are less likely to get sucked into a black hole of quick and easy online resources that may take you away from the objective you are trying to teach. 

4. Ask for help and admit when you don’t know 

We can sometimes feel insecure when someone asks us a question and we don’t know the answer. There is nothing wrong with saying, “I’m not sure, let me get back to you on that.” No one expects you to have all the answers. The best leaders are the ones who know their strengths and limits. If you feel like you are struggling, reach out and ask for help. 

5. Establish expectations and communication with instructional aides as early as possible 

If you are in a classroom position, you will most likely be working with one or more instructional aides (also called paraprofessionals). This relationship was something I had not thought much about before I started but it is one of the most important working relationships you’ll have, and the person at work you will spend the most time with. Instructional aides do some of the most challenging, thankless work at a school site, and they are an equal and essential member of the instructional team. As a first year teacher, this dynamic can potentially be tricky because as you are figuring out your job and your workflow, you also have at least one other adult looking to you for direction. Remember, just because a previous teacher did it one way does not mean you have to do it that way! Do not be shy about saying what you need and try to talk openly about how you and your aides can support each other. It is much easier to set expectations at the beginning than to just “see what happens,” and address it later. I also suggest having regular check-ins with your aides to make sure your systems are working well for everyone.  

BONUS: do as I say, not as I do! 

Disconnect your work life from your personal life as much as you can. Get a separate Google phone number (it’s free) that you give out to parents, do not add your work email or classroom app notifications to your phone. Have set times that you check your emails, your work calls/texts and your classroom app each day and let parents know if there is an emergency to contact the front office. I say I am going to be better about this every year but start these habits from the beginning and you will be in a much better position. 

I hope this list has been helpful! If you are in your first year, I am sending you lots of love and strong coffee! If you’re an experienced teacher, what would you add?