Chocolate for the Teach

If you’re hired last-minute, you won’t have time to study, but try to squeeze in a little time to research the habits and behaviors of the little people you’ll be teaching. I didn’t do any developmental research at all before I started teaching first grade. I thought I knew that age group because I had worked with second graders in my internship the year before. But for children, there can be differences in behaviors based on even one year of age! Here is a great resource to get you started.  Also, here are some personal findings [unscientific] about 6- and 7-year-olds that I experienced last year:             -6/7s are not too cool for stuffed animals, which is great. I let my students read with reading buddies (aka donated Beanie Babies) sometimes, and they loved it!             -6/7s lose a lot of teeth. The other teachers had cute teeth holde...

Teachers are formed out of a constellation of imprints from other teachers. We learn our ways by watching and doing what better teachers have done before us. You probably have mentor teachers and professors who have shaped you into this newbie teacher, this teacher you are going to be. I will not take up the space here to attribute all of those who have had influence over my teaching craft, but trust me, they are numerous, and I am so grateful for them! In this post, then, I wanted to share my favorite wise-teacher-owls that can be shareable. You don't have to go to a specific school to glean the wisdom or humor in their methods. You can check them out right here on the Web. 1. Mr. Smith. His humor and creative ideas reminded me of why I got into teaching. I have watched every one of his videos. I've also implemented a lot of his great ideas into my classroom! 2. Michael Linsin from smartclassroommanagement.com. Have you ever read a book and thought, this is the...

You probably received enough quality advice about getting hired in your teacher education program-- stand-out resumes, portfolios, interview tips, etc. In this post, I'm not going to attempt to give you information about that.  Yes, I got hired, but I don't know why specifically. Did my resume font really make a difference? Did they call each one of my references? Did I make a great impression at my interview? Was it all just a happy accident? I may never know. But I am here to give you two main points to help you in your quest: 1. Don't take it personally. If you don't get hired right away, if you seem to be shuffling yourself from interview to interview with no successes, just know, new teacher, that it probably isn't personal. It's just that it is a high-risk endeavor for a school to take on a brand-new teacher. Even if you had an amazing internship experience (the more/longer, the better), schools treat new teachers like a wild roll of the dice. ...

As I was frantically trying to gather advice for my first year of teaching on the best tool available to me-- the Internet-- I noticed a few things: 1. There are a LOT of teacher blogs out there. Really cute, chevron-or-owl-themed blogs but an information overload for me. 2. There was no resource I could find (whether blog, book or random Facebook rambling) that gave me any insight into the actual experiences of a first-year teacher. The reason for the latter point became pretty obvious: What first-year teacher has time to create a thriving teaching blog? I mentally clung to the idea of making a blog once the summer after my first year hit, to offer whatever small amount of advice I could to those who found themselves in the unfortunate yet also exciting group known as new teachers . I realize my experiences could differ vastly from yours. But, dear reader, I believe we will overlap in our undertakings more than any other slice of the profession. As new teachers, we have unique ch...