Rookie mistakes

KK

Long time no post!  Well, I survived my first semester as a teacher.  It has by no means been easy, and there have definitely been moments where I thought about how happy I would be if I never had to go back, but the past 4 months have taught me many things. And because I love you, dear reader, and hope that if you are a prospective teacher you don't make the same mistakes I did, I will share them with you.

1). You are not their friend.

     I have learned that there is a huge difference between being friendly to your students and being their friend. I am a self-proclaimed people pleaser.  From day one I have been so concerned with whether or not my students like me. This has earned me the title of "cool teacher" at the expense of respect.  Remember: you can always lighten up but you can never get tougher.  

2). Make friends with the office staff.  

       There will probably always be a parent/co-worker who will have something negative to say about you to the principal about the way you are doing your job.  The closer you are with the office staff, the more likely you will be defended if that does happen.  My job involves more than just teaching students.  I am also in charge of helping other teachers with technology issues.  I certainly don't know everything about computers, but I do my best, and I have a few higher-ups to help me if I get stuck.  They also help the tech's at the other 4 campuses so sometimes it takes awhile to get problems solved at my campus. Naturally that's my fault so the principal hears my name fairly often.  Point being, had I made more of an effort to make better friends with the office staff, this semester would have gone a bit smoother.

3). Establish procedures in the beginning and follow through with them.

        For some reason I thought we had to jump right into the curriculum.  I spent one day on rules and expectations.  That day ended up being pointless.  The key is to figure out what your procedures are going to be before the start of the school year.  I kind of made it up as I was going and when something didn't work, I just stopped doing it.  I guess for my first year, trial and error was really all I had to go off of, but I probably should have talked to some of the other teachers about my ideas before I ran with them.

That's all I can think of for now, but I'm sure many more lessons will be learned (and hopefully taught) as this new semester progresses.