Archive for the ‘New Teacher Diaries’ Category
[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 greatest things about teaching in a big city like NYC is that there are resources everywhere you turn. Some of them are great, some of them are so-so and some turn out to be terrible. But there is no shortage of opportunities for learning outside the classroom.
One of the biggest concerns, however, of inner-city classrooms is a lack of sufficient funding to make use of all the opportunities available. Sometimes, though, you come across an incredibly rich experience that is also entirely free.
The American Museum of Natural History has such an experience: the Moveable Museum. 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.]
A few weeks ago, I had my first “bad” day of the semester. It wasn’t all bad; in fact, a lot of it was good. I got flowers and two cards from students for my birthday and my last two classes sang to me and were extremely well behaved. The first two classes of the day, however, did not go as planned.
Last year, I fell into the trap of assuming that my students knew certain things: how to use a ruler, how many centimeters are in a meter, how to create a graph. They’re tenth graders, after all. But in reality, many of them only read on a 4th grade level and they never mastered the use of the metric system. They struggle to even figure out which side of the ruler is inches and which is centimeters. I resolved that this year, I would start out by explicitly teaching these skills rather than assuming the students already possessed them. 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.]
Overall, my second year as a teacher has been ten times easier than my first year — I am feeling confident and in control, even when I allow the students to take the wheel for a bit. It feels great! But there is one class that I’m still having trouble with.
My largest class happens to also contain about 15 of the most difficult students in the grade. While this means that my other classes are wonderful, devoid of any trouble-makers, this class reduced me to tears yesterday for the first time this year (although I would never actually cry in front of them, I saved it for later). Standing in that room, watching every single student talk without giving me a second thought, I felt like a newbie all over again. What if, I thought, this is how it’s always going to be.
Today, I got back out there and managed to get them somewhat under control. Here’s how.
1. I let my feelings out the night before. More »
[Editor's note: Bronxteach is a fourth-year elementary school teacher. He blogs at bronxteach.com, where this post first appeared.]
Last week my school gave parents an opportunity to meet with teachers. In my halting, broken Spanish I dispensed with as many suggestions as possible for the handful of parents who visited my third-grade classroom. I talked about the importance of homework and reading every day. I talked about ways parents could help their kids learn basic math facts, practice telling time and counting money. I threw a lot of ideas out, and it may have been overwhelming. Before I let them go, I tried to emphasize something more important than all the little ways they could help at home. I tried to add one last message, in my stilted Spanish: “Yo quiero los ninos a aprender como… encantar… aprendiendo.” I want the kids to learn how to love learning. 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.]
Happy back to school! In honor of my officially becoming a tenured teacher (take that, new value-added teacher data reports to determine tenure), I present to you 10 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I Started Teaching.
1. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
You put your students’ names on everything in your room only to find out that some of them are spelled wrong on your class list. Or some of them moved away and you’re getting three more instead. And now you don’t have enough little birthday cakes to complete your class chart! Something like this will inevitably happen in the first week of school. But the truth is, the only person who will notice is you — and if you resent the fact that you’re going to stay at school until 6 pm redoing it, you’re just going to make yourself miserable.
2. If you can put off until tomorrow what you planned on doing today…you might want to think about it. More »
[Editor's note: Ms. Socrates is a science teacher in a high school in Brooklyn entering her second year. She blogs at Teacher's Diary where this post originally appeared.]
The day after I got back from my trip to Europe, I was already feeling the pressure to start getting ready for my upcoming year. As I have reflected on my first year this summer, I feel I have grown a lot as an educator — I will certainly start this coming year off very differently than last year. Still, everyone says the second year is in some ways harder than the first. In the first year, I was not as hard on myself when things went wrong, telling myself it was a rookie mistake that I would learn from. In my second year, however, I know I will not be as forgiving. I’ll still be experimenting a lot, trying new techniques and lesson ideas, but after seeing how poorly my students did on the Regents last year, I am determined to do much better with my second crop of students.
Here’s what I’m thinking about as the new school year approaches: More »
Here’s a round up of last-day-of-school posts from some of our New Teacher Diaries contributors:
[Editor's note: Mr. Foteah is a second-year teacher in an elementary school in Queens. He blogs at From the Desk of Mr. Foteah , where this post originally appeared.]
After I dismissed my fifth graders for the final time last year, the school guidance counselor found me and said, “Mr. Foteah, I’ve never seen a fifth grade class leave like yours. On the last day of school, all the other students say, ‘Bye, teacher! Bye, teacher!’ But all of yours are in tears.”
Well, what can I say? I’m a sentimental guy, and I lay it on thick for the last day of school. Although the little rugrats may test my patience and nerves as the final day approaches, I’m not the kind of person to look at the last day as liberation. Sure, I look forward to the summer, and I enjoy the break from the stress, but I believe my job is about instilling memories that my kids won’t soon forget. And so, I look at the last day as one final blowout in celebration of our accomplishments as individuals and as a family. More »
[Editor's note: Mr. Foteah is a second-year teacher in an elementary school in Queens. He blogs at From the Desk of Mr. Foteah , where this post originally appeared.]
As the school year comes to a close, it is a particularly special time for my graduating fifth graders.
The three official rites of passage for the graduates in my school are: awards night, a dance, and the graduation ceremony itself. All are charged with emotions that run the gamut from pride to joy to sadness to curiosity. For an 11-year old, the last couple of weeks of fifth grade, knowing you’re at the end of your elementary career and ready to conquer the next phase of life, are really wonderful times.
Monday was awards night, and there was a palpable buzz in the classroom that day for the students who were invited to accept an award at night. They were anxious to get gussied up — the girls with their barrettes, the boys with their too-short ties. The fact that I resolutely refused to even give them a hint what awards they would receive only made the anticipation greater. More »
[Editor's note: Miss Brave is a third-year elementary school teacher in Queens in her first year as a classroom teacher. She blogs at miss brave teaches nyc, where this post originally appeared.]
I had a truly fantastic birthday at school. First and foremost, Julio’s mother gave me the greatest birthday gift of all by not sending Julio — my biggest problem student, a 2nd-grader prone to epic meltdowns and all manner of out-of-control behavior — to school on my birthday. As a result, it was a blessedly relaxing day, and I was genuinely touched by the gifts and the love my students gave me.
Of course, just when you’re least expecting it, the poop will hit the fan. When I arrived in the morning on our Brooklyn-Queens professional development day, I wasn’t expecting to find next year’s organization sheet in my mailbox … but it was there. With my heart pounding, I quickly scanned all the names of next year’s 2nd-grade teachers.
And my name … wasn’t among them. Apparently, my students aren’t the only ones moving to 3rd grade next year! More »
[Editor's note: Bronxteach is a third-year elementary school teacher. He blogs at bronxteach.com, where this post first appeared.]
One of the axioms I was told early in my teaching career was, “Don’t smile till Christmas.” And I suppose, to a certain extent, this cliché is a useful tool of survival for novice teachers. But based on recent experience, I don’t need advice on how to handle problems with the kids; I need help with the adults.
The general rule I have tried to follow since early on is, “Pick your battles.” This is definitely helpful in my third-grade classroom — should I bother arguing over pen vs. pencil? Is it worth addressing a kid who is overly fidgety on the rug? — but it is even more valuable for navigating school politics. Since my first year teaching I have found myself confronting issues large and small that made me uncomfortable. Deciding whether to voice my opinions was always a difficult choice. More »
[Editor's note: Mr. Foteah is a second-year teacher in an elementary school in Queens. He blogs at From the Desk of Mr. Foteah , where this post originally appeared.]
Dear Gladys,
Today, when you were supposed to be reading your book, and while I was meeting with another student, I saw you writing something furiously. You are one of the few students in the class who regularly and dutifully records your thoughts on Post-its, and, when I excused myself from my conference to come see what you were doing, I expected to see just that. However, when I asked you what you were doing, you told me about your book. I listened, but continued to glance at what you were trying to hide under your arm. When I saw it, I was less than happy. You were doing last night’s homework, and I was livid.
I did not react as I should have. Taking your paper and crumpling it was inappropriate. Had I thought for a moment, instead of reacting instantly, I would have remembered that you are one of the most diligent, hard-working students in the class. I would have realized something was amiss. More »
[Editor's note: Little Miss Sunshine is a second-year teacher in an elementary school in Queens.]
As professional educators, most of us can point to that one great teacher who encouraged us to work hard, challenged us with new ideas and ultimately inspired us to follow this career path. But recently I started to think about that teacher’s opposite: the worst teacher I ever had, the one who brought me down and made me feel small.
I remember it clearly: I was sitting in my 3rd-grade classroom, front row center, working on a reading comprehension exercise, when Ms. G walked over to me and asked why I hadn’t answered any of the questions at the bottom of the page. More »
[Editor's note: Ms. Flecha is a third-year ESL teacher in an elementary school in Queens. She blogs at My Life Untranslated where this post first appeared.]
My professor who is advising me on my Master’s thesis recently asked me why I think my ELL students do so well, often making more than a year and a half’s worth of progress in reading. My initial response was that I think it’s because I teach them to be aware of the language they’re learning and train them to think about unknown words rather than just try to sound them out or get frustrated and skip them. But I can’t say for sure that they all really do that. I do witness a great many doing that, especially the ones who do so well. I also do what I can to limit the role of the affective filter so that they feel comfortable as language learners. But I think I was wrong. I don’t think these are really what’s at the heart of what’s going on in my class (I also don’t know how easy it’d be to compare me to other similar classes since kids are different, not just teachers).
To be honest, I feel it’s the norm, and whether it is or not I tend not to think about why they do well. I look at why they aren’t doing better, which teachers need to, but that’s not the whole picture. More »
[Editor's note: Ms. Socrates is a first-year 10th-grade science teacher in a school in Brooklyn. She blogs at Teacher's Diary where this post originally appeared.]
Like so many new teachers, I have had to learn the hard way that I cannot fully trust my students, no matter how close I feel to them or how responsible they may seem.
A few days ago, my camera was stolen during a passing period, when I left it on my desk for a few moments to slow an influx of kids into my classroom. The students are always a bit off the walls right after lunch and I was hoping to avoid chaos at the front of my classroom.
Instead, I lost my camera. More »
