New Teacher Diaries contributor Nick James writes about how his wish for a school-branded necktie led to a “School Culture Initiative,” which established new school colors, a mascot, and a logo. School t-shirts were distributed to students and faculty, and the initiative culminated in a pep rally that was “the first time in our school’s history that the entire school was in one place.”

After teaching for a couple of years, and especially since my high school glory days, my perspective on many things in education have changed substantially. Two years into my current position it struck me that the symbols, mascots, colors and various other school spirit pieces are incredibly important for many students and teachers to feel as though they are part of something larger — a community. Hopefully our rebranding is just the beginning of a major shift in the way our students view their school and school community. Hopefully the momentum that’s been started carries us into the next major stage in our school’s history.

[Editor's note: Mr. Foteah is a third-year teacher in an elementary school in Queens. He blogs at From the Desk of Mr. Foteah, where this post originally appeared.]

I recently wrote about how having friends at work was never a priority. However, the fact of the matter is I have made some close ones — people I really respect and enjoy being around. That makes work pleasant, as we’re all dealing with similar challenges together, instead of battling alone. Of course, it makes you want to go to work everyday, knowing that you’re going to a place where you are liked and like the people around you.

Now, I’ve heard anecdotes recently from a variety of schools about colleagues not being so supportive of each other, saying nasty things behind others’ backs and the like. I hope no one is doing this to me, and if any of my colleagues have any kind of issue with me, that they can bring it to my attention and we can work it out.

Like everyone else, I want to be recognized for my positive attributes, and I want those to be my hallmarks and form my reputation. More »

[Editor's note: Mr. Foteah is a third-year teacher in an elementary school in Queens. He blogs at From the Desk of Mr. Foteah, where this post originally appeared.]

Recently, I took the opportunity to do something I’ve never done before. I brought out the students’ writing folders, with all their published pieces from the school year. I called their attention to their non-fiction writing, and I asked them to pick the one they thought next year’s teacher should see. This forced some serious consideration and observation. Students were, maybe for the first time, attending to a tangible representation of how their work has evolved for the better since September. They recalled each book, and I was amazed at their ability to read them almost perfectly.

Most pleasant for all of us, especially me, was the way they reacted when they reached the very backs of their folders. There, they could see a writing sample from the very first day of school, replete with summer rust and lacking many conventions. The simplest words that they take for granted now were misspelled. People were drawn as sticks, some with legs coming out of their heads. For some students, a single letter represented a word. For others, pictures did all the storytelling. They could not believe the difference between September and June. More »

[Editor's note: Bronxteach is a fourth-year elementary school teacher. He blogs at bronxteach.com, where this post first appeared.]

Is it really June already? It seems almost impossible to believe. The school year always has its ebbs and flows, its points where you can’t see an end in sight and points where it seems the year is flying by. In mid-June, it feels like a little bit of both.

At this point in the year, teachers and students are literally counting the days to summer. Meanwhile, teachers are in a rush to get final assessments and all sorts of clerical work completed. On top of that, it’s our last chance to cram in a couple of projects, rush through that last one (or two) math units and get our kids ready for next year. So we’re in the awkward position of wishing the year was over, but wishing we had more time left. More »

[Editor's note: Mr. Foteah is a third-year teacher in an elementary school in Queens. He blogs at From the Desk of Mr. Foteah, where this post originally appeared.]

A while ago, I made a proclamation (in my head, anyway) that I’d move the direction of my blog away from railing against that which was not in my control. What was the point? At any rate, my students this year are too young to take the tests that in many ways define grades 3-8, so it wasn’t really on my mind much. In fact, I not so quietly gloated to my colleagues the last few weeks that, “I’m glad not to be dealing with this anymore.”

But today, I feel the need to pontificate just a little. The testing bubble burst this week when my students had to sit for three separate sessions of the state English proficiency exam. Since I have a bridge class, I had to deal with the logistical aggravation of the arrangement, including switched and missed preps as well as figuring out where to keep the students who weren’t testing in a given session. This was a nuisance but something I could manage.

My students had to deal with a much more potent and demoralizing aggravation. More »

[Editor's note: Miss Brave is the pseudonym of a fourth-year teacher in an elementary school in Queens. She blogs at miss brave teaches nyc, where this post originally appeared.]

Top 10 Questions/Comments Made By My Third Graders During Their First Ever Set of ELA and Math State Exams

(aka “Why Teaching In a Testing Grade May Cause Premature Aging,” or “Why I Have Band-Aids On All My Fingers From Nervously Picking Off the Cuticles While Proctoring”)

10. “Why do we have to use a #2 pencil?”

9. (Directions read by me: “You may not speak to each other while the test is being administered.” Student:) “What does ‘administered’ mean?”

8. “I don’t get how to show my work for this part.”

7. (The test directs students to continue working when they see the words GO ON at the bottom of the page and to stop working when they see the word STOP. On the ELA, students get ten minutes per passage and have to STOP before being directed to move on. On the math exam, they get 60 minutes to do all 40 questions, no STOPping. On the math exam, one student asked:) “When is it gonna say STOP?!”

6. “But none of these choices are right.” More »

[Editor's note: Miss Brave is the pseudonym of a fourth-year teacher in an elementary school in Queens. She blogs at miss brave teaches nyc, where a version of this post originally appeared.]

Test prep in my third-grade class has been extremely stressful. First of all, I’ve never taught “test prep” before, not least of all to kids who have never taken “THE TEST” before. I’m convinced my co-teacher and I don’t know what we’re doing and if (when?) the children do poorly, it will be our fault for not adequately preparing them. Second of all, I went to this Teacher Center workshop where I was shamefully reminded that my students are eight years old. They are eight years old and I have spent the last four weeks being impatient with them because they don’t understand how to bubble the bubbles correctly or aren’t following our test-taking tips (“we just taught you to circle the genre in the directions and that answer choice is directly from the passage”).

When by mid-May it’s all over, I’m not sure what we’ll do. We have other units left to cover, of course, but I fear the kids will be mentally checked out of school for the year now that it will no longer be on THE TEST, and as teachers we’ll be looking ahead to next year. More »

[Editor's note: Mr. Foteah is a third-year teacher in an elementary school in Queens. He blogs at From the Desk of Mr. Foteah, where this post originally appeared.]

I allow my students to bring small toys to school. The toys help keep them out of trouble at lunch with necessary imaginative diversions that they don’t get in school otherwise. They also lend a sense of security to the students, knowing they’ve got something genuinely their own in school with them.

The other day, one of my students picked up one of the toys off the floor. It apparently never got back into Donald’s bag after lunch, and he had left. She held up a small Superman figure and told me it belonged to Donald. I asked her to leave it on my desk and told her I’d return it to him. This was last week.

Today, I was doing a little desk straightening, and my eyes fell upon Superman, arms stretched toward the sky, plastic cape frozen in a flap behind his chiseled shoulders. I picked up the little toy, balanced it on a couple of things on my desk trying to get him to stand. I couldn’t do it, so finally, I propped him on a pencil holder. Superman tipped forward toward his prone flying position, and I said to myself, “Somehow, that works.” More »

[Editor's note: Mr. Foteah is a third-year teacher in an elementary school in Queens. He blogs at From the Desk of Mr. Foteah, where this post originally appeared.]

A few weeks ago, I was struck with some inspiration before the kids arrived one morning, and decided to create a “Mystery Envelope” to add some intrigue to my elementary special education classroom, and to liven up our somewhat stale morning routines. I try to reserve the contents of the Mystery Envelope for the most outstanding performances in kindness and personal improvement.

After the Mystery Envelope’s debut, I hung it near our calendar as a reminder that “You never know what’s inside the Mystery Envelope!” and as a somewhat passive message that good things come to those who earn them.

When it comes to awarding a student with the contents of the envelope, I like to strike when the iron is hot. The iron hadn’t been much hotter than it was the previous day after Tessa’s brilliant display of friendship and compassion toward Donald, who was very upset that his mother did not get to see him perform in our class play. I knew it would be a good opportunity to keep Tessa on a hot streak. More »

[Editor's note: Ms. Flecha is the pseudonym of a fourth-year elementary school ESL teacher in Queens. She blogs at My Life Untranslated, where a version of this post first appeared.]

A former student came to visit me one recent Friday morning. Last year was the first year I taught 5th grade, and this was the first time I’d been visited by a “graduated” student. I was really taken by surprise when he walked in my door.

If I had had to guess who would come to visit me first, I wouldn’t have guessed him. “Carlos” was a student who had a hard time sitting still in the beginning of last year. He would often ask to go to the bathroom, or to the guidance counselor, and when he was sitting at his desk, he’d either be talking or falling asleep. He often needed help with things that other students could do independently.

Yet he was one of the students I’d miss whenever he was absent, and he was an example of the kind of student whose life experiences had inspired me to become a teacher in the first place. The main reason for his agitated behavior and his exhaustion, I later found out, was that he had been suffering nightmares about his border-crossing experience, and was living in constant fear that immigration agents would take him or his parents to jail or send them back to their country. And here he was in my class trying to learn in a new language. More »

Chinese New Year Parade in Flushing

[Editor's note: Little Miss Sunshine is a third-year teacher in an elementary school in Queens.]

Feb. 3 was the kick-off of Chinese New Year, a 15-day celebration filled with food, family, and bright colors. I work in the heart of Flushing, which boasts a large, and growing, Chinese population. This year I have a self-contained beginner ESL 3rd grade class. This is my first year teaching 3rd grade, after three years of teaching ESL kindergarten. And though Chinese New Year was a celebration in my class in the past, it was a modest affair, with some books about the holiday and Chinese food.

I thought this year’s celebration would be no different, but when we came back from winter break in early January, my students couldn’t stop talking about their plans for Chinese New Year. I quickly realized that this holiday is a much bigger deal than I originally thought. More »

[Editor's note: Ms. Socrates is a second-year science teacher in a high school in Brooklyn. She blogs at Teacher's Diary where this post originally appeared.]

One of the most valuable things a teacher can do is get ahead. On planning, on grading, on classroom decoration, you name it. Despite what many a lay person may think, teaching is a time consuming job, one that follows you home and even into your dreams at night. During the school year, I rarely feel rested and I am often racing around trying to get everything done. It is on the worst days that — inevitably — something unplanned comes up out of the blue to throw you off even more: a parent shows up for a meeting, a student you are close to has a crisis, the principal needs your help doing whatever it is he is doing.

I have learned in my year and a half of teaching that getting ahead from time to time is the only way to stay sane. During Regents week last week, I was able to get ahead, at least a little bit, which allowed me to relax over the weekend. Still, the snow day on Thursday threw me off and I now find myself backpedaling again. In an effort to get ahead again, I have been thinking about the most important steps. Here’s what I’ve come up with: More »

[Editor's note: Mr. Foteah is a third-year teacher in an elementary school in Queens. He blogs at From the Desk of Mr. Foteah, where this post originally appeared.]

In my first two years as a teacher, I worked with upper grade general education classes. This year, I’m in a different world in two ways: I’m teaching primary grades, and mine is a special education class.

Since early January, I’ve been in a bit of a transitional phase.

I felt from the start that if I could rein in student behavior, encourage positive socialization with peers and others throughout the school community, and help develop my students’ independence, I would consider the year a success. These things have happened. My students are usually free of behavior issues (other than the minor infractions that are typical of any 6-year old). They are polite and helpful toward one another. If a child falls, the whole class asks, without my prompting, “Are you okay?” If someone drops their supplies, the entire class descends to the floor to pick them up. By and large, the students are much more independent than the beginning of the year, using the flow of the day to determine what materials they need for the next period, bringing things to the office with a partner, and advocating for their needs in the classroom.

All of this is necessary, but still, I hesitate to say this year has been a total success. It seems I may have been so caught up in developing these skills that I neglected to attend to the academic ones. Oops. More »

[Editor's note: Ms. Socrates is a second-year science teacher in a high school in Brooklyn. She blogs at Teacher's Diary where this post originally appeared.]

The January Regents exams are being administered this week. When I first heard that New York was considering nixing the January Regents, I was dead-set against it. I felt that students should be given every opportunity to make up the exams they failed in the past — I figured the more chances they had, the more likely they would be to pass.

However, since this is now the second January Regents week I will experience, I am becoming more ambivalent about the whole affair. More »

[Editor's note: Miss Brave is a fourth-year elementary school teacher in Queens. She blogs at miss brave teaches nyc, where this post originally appeared.]

On any given day, I might find myself frustrated by a number of things that go on in my classroom. I’ve written before about minor calamities (broken pencils! lost folders!) and major ones (suicide threats! thrown chairs!). For the most part, those incidents — like many things that happen when you become a teacher — had nothing to do with my actual teaching ability, but rather my ability to not jump out a window in the face of overwhelming despair.

Lately, though, I’ve noticed something that does make me worry about my teaching ability: A number of my students, during mini lessons, are deeply engaged. Deeply engaged, that is, with various activities other than paying attention to my mini lesson. They are drawing on their folders. They are playing with their fingers, or with the person’s hair in front of them. They are, in short, paying so little attention to the lesson that they are not even bothering to pretend to pay attention by staring at a space approximately above my head.

Over the years, I’ve tried a number of methods for bringing these students back to earth. More »