Teach with Success

What to Expect

          The myths of teaching range from “it must be nice to be off work by 3:00 and have so many days off” to “teachers never get a break, they work all day and grade papers all night”. The truth lies somewhere in between. Teachers work hard, no doubt about it! Being a teacher is never going to be a 40 hour a week job, but with strategic planning and tricks of the trade you can turn that mountain of work into a mole hill (and maybe enjoy some of those days off!).

            As a new teacher you have so much adjusting to do. How will I arrange my classroom? How should I handle student issues? How many papers should I grade? Do I really KNOW the curriculum? How many meetings are there? Will I ever learn all of the school’s policies? What about parents? And the list goes on forever!

Setting Goals

            The only way to stay on top of the game is by laying out a strategic game plan for staying organized early! Before you ever set foot in your school think about all of the things you want to accomplish. Make both short term and long term goals. Get a notebook or daily planner and start listing what you want to get done each day and STICK WITH IT!!! You can even use the goal setting form in the back of this book if you need help getting started (page 145).

Start Planning

             Now that you have your goals planned out its time to charge in and get working on all those things you want to accomplish! Hopefully you have a few weeks before school starts and you can space out your To Do List but if not you’ll be caught up soon enough, it just will take some extra work on your part.

            The number one thing on your list needs to be getting in touch with your department chair or principal to find out your schedule. Nothing’s worse than walking into a new building, starting a new job, and having no clue where you fit in. Be sure to ask these questions. What am I going to teach? Do you know the general class size? Will I have my own room or will I be a floater? What is my daily schedule? No one will think you’re a pest- in fact your supervisors will applaud your initiative and see how ambitious and organized you are!

            Once you know what you’ll be teaching its imperative that you ask for a copy of the curriculum guide, text book, and exams for the class! Even if all your school has is just an outline for what you’ll be teaching it’s better than nothing. As soon as possible start mapping out your lessons. Construct a basic outline for the sequence that you’ll be teaching each unit and a time frame for each exam. Don’t start writing lesson plans yet, just familiarize yourself with the content. Be flexible in your planning. Keep in mind there are going to be days that you need to re-teach material, school closings are going to knock you off pace, assemblies and fieldtrips may deplete your students from time to time. Nothing ever runs perfectly, plan ahead but be willing and able to roll with the punches! If you plan a few extra days into every unit these small bumps in the road won’t seem so catastrophic. If you do finish early you’ll be able to jump ahead to the next unit a little early or reward the kids with a special movie day about the topic you just covered! 

             Be sure to grab a large binder for your lessons. Get it labeled and organized for each unit you plan to cover, this way as you write up your lessons you can simply insert a copy of the lesson plan, any PowerPoint’s, dittos you’ve used, and a note or two about...