This year, Perspectives chronicled, in three parts, the work and reflections of one new teacher. It is our hope that, through this teacher's writing, others will come to revisit what it means to be new. What are the trials, the rewards, the excitements? What are the needs and the uncertainties? In reading these thoughts, we encourage you to reconsider how schools can support and encourage these new professionals to sustain their passion, develop their skills and professionalism, and extend their capacity as educators in this next generation.
We thank Andrea Turoff, third grade teacher from the Willis E. Thorpe School in Danvers, Massachusetts for sharing her candid thoughts throughout her first year of teaching.
I am spending this summer preparing for the arrival of 21 students. I have been moving very slowly through the classroom, questioning all my moves. Where will my bulletin boards be? What will I have on them? What corner will my library be in? How will I arrange the books? Can the students reach the third shelf? Should I arrange the desks in islands or in a horseshoe? I think about activities that will help the students get to know each other and me, and about building community. I think about classroom routines and how to run smooth transitions. I think about the curriculum and how I will pass on my love of reading. As I arrange and rearrange desks and chairs, these thoughts run through my mind.
I have found my mentors, my colleagues, my past experiences, and all those involved in the life of the school to have been a great support. The teachers with whom I will be working have been helpful in both listening to my ideas and offering their own suggestions. Doors to the other classrooms are always open and my hesitancy to pop my head into another's room to ask a question is long gone. I feel this open door policy has been a valuable asset.
As a graduate student, I remember my instructors placing emphasis on reflection. I feel this is still a key step in promoting my own growth now as a teacher. However, I struggle with finding the time to reflect. In fact, I feel I evaluate my own teaching all the time ‑driving to and from school, cooking dinner, and brushing my teeth. Every day, I return home with questions and ideas about topics from behavior management to paper management. However, my views continuously change with each days experience and I wish I had more time to make sense of it all.
One issue I struggle with is not looking too far into the future. I need to constantly remind myself that I have 180 days ‑ not everything has to be taught and learned within this week. Already I feel there is so much to cover and not enough time! This feeling then translates to doubt when I allow time for children to engage in tasks not directly related to math, reading, or social studies.
I plan too much from Monday to Friday and, as I go through the week, I start to cover my very organized schedule with red arrows. These arrows point to two or three days down the road and often from there extend into the following week. Perhaps it is better to be over-planned than under-planned, but sometimes I'm not sure.
One of my strengths that I bring into teaching is my flexibility. If a lesson goes well and I sense the students want to spend more time on the activity, I will go with it. However, there are times I feel we need to stick with the schedule and have found myself rushing through an assignment, which ends up as a disaster for everyone. On these days, I leave the classroom thinking how much better I will be next year as a result of the experience.
Either way, whenever I sit down to plan my schedule, I feel both relieved and anxious. Although certain subjects, such as math, follow a text, I try to add my own ideas and interactive lessons that are not part of the basic text. This is when I begin to feel anxious. There are many activities I would like the class to experience, but as my mentor used to say, "...time is not a friend." It is finding the right balance between my own creativity and acceptance of the established curriculum. I am learning to take one step at a time. Regardless, as each week passes, I am always amazed at how fast Friday arrives. The days have never gone by as quickly as they have since I've been teaching.
Lisa came to her decision to teach elementary students while attending medical school. She writes, "I enjoyed the time I spent in an afterschool program more than the time I spent in the pediatric clinic." She earned a Master in Management degree, with a health care concentration at Brandeis University, then her Master of Arts in Teaching from Tufts University. She is now teaching third graders and is completing her first year in the classroom.
Last week I began to fill out report cards. I found it quite challenging to take my image of a child, as a person and as a student, and translate this into a collection of numbers, checks, and letter grades. I spent four and a half hours filling in checks and grades for "Writing" yesterday. Marking a check, check plus, or check minus takes only a second, but the debating, questioning, and second-guessing extended the time. I kept a grade book, but I still have doubts.
Another conflict I have experienced deals with missing days with my students for professional development. Each time I am gone, so are the routines and expectations I hold for my students. It seems once I get a routine established, something else surfaces ‑ sickness, workshop, state testing, half‑day meetings. However, what is the solution asking teachers for more of their time beyond school hours? I suppose the answer lies in weighing costs against benefits, benefits that may not be realized until later.
As I become more comfortable with one aspect of teaching, there is always another to work on. Over time, I have heard, it does get easier; veteran teachers have learned what works best for certain students, what the most effective teaching practices are, what works and what doesn't. They have revised their practice over time and each year, they have a deeper foundation upon which to build. However, I see them working just as hard.
With each year, I assume certain aspects of teaching will become easier and this will allow me more time and energy for other aspects, such as curriculum development. When you do it right, teaching seems a never‑ending job.
One of my biggest challenges is planning lessons to match the abilities and needs of all my students. Differentiated instruction was within my reach while student teaching, but in my own classroom, it is a much greater challenge.
The wide range of student abilities in mathematics is prominent everyday. Separating my twenty‑two students into three flexible groups is not enough differentiation. I have students who are making flashcards for addition facts and others who are already interested in learning long division, and who are ready for it. I would like to move along those students who are ready for new material, yet I have not reached the point where I feel comfortable starting some on a new concept while leaving others behind. However, I do have activities and creative projects planned for students who complete assigned activities early.
I have started a before‑school math club for students who need extra help or time to master a skill. This provides me with a little extra time to work with students without the class distractions. Perhaps when I no longer need to use time beyond the school day to meet students' needs, I will feel I have become better at differentiating instruction.
Since September, teaching has become a little easier ‑ not less challenging, just a little easier. I am more efficient with planning, I have a better sense of what lessons will work with MY students, and I can predict who will have difficulty before I implement an activity, and therefore, prepare for those pitfalls. I can begin my plans for the following week on Thursday evening instead of Saturday. This earlier preparation saves me a couple of hours on the weekend and a couple of hours on Monday evening.
What will I do with those hours I save? I will leave school at a more reasonable hour. Perhaps I will go to the gym, cook a good dinner, read a book. Since September, I have learned I have to take more time for myself. This helps me teach, and therefore, helps my students.
My job as a teacher is to teach my students and their job, as students, is to learn. However, as I sometimes let them know, I am a student as well, learning beside them. This year, through interactions with students, parents and colleagues, I have had many of my own learning experiences.
My first year of teaching was excellent. Each day was different and, over the course of the year, I have had many satisfying moments. Many have involved sparking a child's sense of curiosity or love of learning.
Jaclyn is a student of mine this year who dramatically shifted her attitude about reading. In the fall, she hated reading and her face expressed disappointment whenever we had independent or guided reading. During the year, we worked together to find a series she felt comfortable reading and practiced strategies she could use to approach unfamiliar words. As the year progressed, I observed a slow change in Jaclyn's attitude. I will never forget the day she came to me and said, "I used to hate reading in second grade and now I love reading. Why do I like it so much now and why do I like Cam Jansen books?" I replied, "Something must have clicked," but she responded, "I think it's because of you." She worked hard and the class came to regard her as our Cam Jansen expert. Jaclyn's changes will surely stay with me.
This year, I think I have heard all the possible excuses for students not completing their homework: I did not have enough time, I forgot it at school, I forgot it at home, I didn't have any paper at home, I copied the wrong assignment, my mom forgot to put it in my bag. One of my students told me her dog ate her homework, twice! As it turns out, it was true.
Which excuses do I accept? I wonder at which point issues shift from students not fulfilling their responsibilities to parents not fulfilling theirs‑ to create a home environment conducive to learning. What if a child's home is filled with distractions and there isn't a supportive environment? Is it, and when is it, okay to expect less from one student than another because of uneven circumstances in the home?
The first time I felt really apprehensive this year was the weekend I spent completing the first set of report cards. I had great difficulty translating a child's efforts into a combination of checks and letters. Despite how the marks were explained on the report card, it was likely the students, parents and I would translate each letter differently. After I completed the first set of report cards, I looked back at each student's grades from the year before. I had given one student all Bs who had received all As in second grade. I feared hearing from parents who held different views of their children's performance in school, especially those whose children’s grades had dropped.
As a teacher, I must never forget how much influence I may have on a child. For five mornings a week for ten months, when my students enter the classroom, they are expecting to see me. During the six hours a day I have with them, who knows what part of the day they will take with them and remember? What images will my students carry with them for life? What impressions did I make?