Things I wish I knew as a first year teacher

It's been 15 years since I've started teaching and there are a few things that if I were a first year teacher, I'd go back and change. Want to know what they are? Grab your earbuds, coffee, sparkling water, whatever. Let’s hop in!

In this podcast episode:

• The idea of going back in time to chang things

• Not letting fear take over

• Sing with my learners more

• Asking more questions

• Saying no

• Hobbies as boundaries

• Allowing the relationship with my learners to matter more

Transcript of the Episode:

The idea of going back in time to change things

Welcome back to the podcast. I think I love this topic so much, because as a first year teacher, you're kind of looking up at this mountain, right, and you see all these other people so much higher than you and they're doing so many amazing things. I mean, I still feel that way, whether in the now it has nothing to do with how much time somebody has been in the field, just what they're doing with their time. But especially as a first year teacher when everybody's been doing this for longer than you have.

And a lot of times we don't get hired with our cohorts. We're just the only first year teacher that we might even know of, in our field in our surrounding area. And things can feel tricky. I mean, they still feel tricky 15 years in. And if you are an experienced teacher, I would love to know from you what you would go back and change and if they're the same as me, or if they are different. And if you are a first year teacher, then I'd love to know from you, what kinds of things you're looking forward to later after this first year.

So I think it's really interesting to think about the idea of what would you change if you were to go back because what would I change? Everything that happened brought me to where I am right now and everything that happened made me who I am and also everything that happened happened to me because of who I am, and because of who I was. So you may or may not be going through the things that I was going through, you might have a bigger personality than I have or had or you might just have a different experience altogether and that's okay. But there are definitely some things that had I done them differently, I would have been a much better teacher.

So I’m gonna spill the tea. You grab some tea, sparkling water, drink of some sort, maybe you're on a walk, maybe you're driving, whatever you're doing, I appreciate you spending this time with me, it means so much to me, it matters a lot, and I appreciate it.

If you like this episode, I would love it if you would leave a review for us on Apple podcasts. This is a really small, tight knit community, which is beautiful and amazing. We want to be able to help other teachers all around the world be able to have the same inspiration and information that you have and that's how they're gonna find out about us, is through you. Okay, okay. Okay, I have some ideas for you.

Not letting fear take over

The first one being, my first year teaching, I hindered myself so much. I let fear take over. And for me, that's a recurring theme in my life personally, although you may not I guess it, it very much so is. Look, I was afraid to like, change IEP goals, because I figured that the other person “knew better” or change IEP time, even when a teacher would ask, Hey, this isn't the amount of time that this type of student usually has. Why did you suggest this? Why are you doing this? I didn't really have an answer other than like, oh, I don't really know what I'm doing. That person obviously knows what they're doing. And it turned out that was not the correct IEP time for that learner. And I could have done a much better job had I just stood in my expertise a little bit more.

Sing with my learners more

Another thing I would do more of is sing! Man, I mean, I'm not a silly person, but I have some personality, but I am so scared of how bad I sing and that I won't even do karaoke. I have a very difficult time with it. But not singing with my young students really hindered our relationships. And it brought out like the worst of their behavior and grid. And I needed to learn behavior management and things of that nature that you don't learn in school. But had I just sung more things would have been so much easier. And now when I sing, it gets to be embarrassing for the student and not for me. So it's a win win.

Asking more questions

The third thing I would do more, or that I would change really is that I would ask more questions. Like I was so afraid of looking like I didn't know what I was doing but news flash, if you're a first year teacher, it’s written on your forehead, you don't know what you're doing. Everybody knows that you don't know what you're doing, the cat is out of the bag. Ask the questions. It'll make you appear much more invested than if you're trying to just be the expert when you don't know what you're doing and you're not asking the questions. Even today, 15 years in, I asked our local TVI to sit down with me and share with me all of her secrets because she's been contracting for longer than I have. And she knows how to do things that I don't know how to do. It really, really never hurts to ask.

Saying no

The fourth thing that I would do more of or that I would do differently is I would say no more. For us, our classes happen in the common grounds of the school. A lot of times that means the teachers walking by might see us and our students. And if you're particularly young or not tall, or you wear your badge on your belt instead of around your neck, or you don't have a raptor badge, like a sticker badge for whatever reason, you might get mistaken as like a friend or a tutor, or you know, they don't necessarily know who you are. And so what ended up happening with me, even though I was full time at this specific school where everybody was full time there, they still didn't know me.

I had this one learner who the teacher would come by, like clockwork, and, you know, talk about their homework or do other things. And it really started to get to me after it kept happening. Because once you allow something to happen once, that kind of tells people how to treat you and what to expect. And what I learned was, if it's an issue, which it should be an issue if somebody's taking up your class time, then you need to nip it in the bud. Not maybe at that exact moment when they're in front of the learner, but within 24 hours. And I did not feel capable of just saying no. No, this is my class time. Can you handle this during your class time? You have this learner all day, can you do it then? I have them for 30 minutes.

Hobbies as boundaries

Another thing I would do differently in my personal life is I would create hobbies because hobbies create boundaries. And it also allows you to become the person that you want to become. When you step into the role as a teacher, especially a first year teacher, you are becoming a new person. And it's really important to know who you are outside of work. Just as it is important for you to discover who you are while at work.

For me personally, I moved multiple states away. And while I had an OK peer group, I was working around the clock because I was in my first year of teaching and I was finishing up grad school. Now a lot of us are in that same position where we're doing grad school and we're teaching at the same time or we're taking our certification classes and teaching at the same time. And what can happen is we forget to live. We forget to have work-life boundaries, and we can forget who we are. That's exactly what happened with me. I worked so much. And a lot of times I stayed at my full time job later, because I knew that the only thing that I had to do once I went home was to work on my master's paperwork and that didn't sound fun. I would much rather make a map than write a paper.

But I worked many weekends and I didn't fully take care of myself, and honor the new identity of this person that I was becoming, because we make all of our decisions from our identity level. And if you start your first year at the identity level of a struggling teacher, it's a lot more difficult to get out of that identity and shed the beliefs of working hard equals being a good teacher and you can really suffer.

I remember after I finished my master's, right, I turned on my paperwork, everything was great. I lived far away, so I didn't even go graduate. And so it was just like, nothing. Nothing happened. There was no big hurrah, nothing to do. And then I had no idea who I was, I had to really figure it out, I had to get hobbies. And I… I remember sitting in my apartment thinking about this. So what am I going to do now? And what I did was I filled my time with more work, because I didn't know who I was. And I didn't have those work life boundaries.

So it's really important that you create those for yourself. Even and maybe even, especially when things are really, really tight with your time, because you're doing so much for work and you're learning so much, and you're growing so much. And you don't have your lessons planned out yet and you don't know exactly what the timing is like at that one intersection so you have to go to the intersection, I get that we've all been there. We've all been there.
Just make sure that you take care of yourself if you're in your first year. And I wonder if you are past your first year, if you're an experienced, O and M specialist or TVI or teacher in general, if this really resonates with you, let me know, send me a DM on Instagram @alliedindependence. Let's chat about it.

Allowing the relationships with my learners to matter more

And then I think, you know, one of the last things that I would really focus on that I knew was first and I think I did a pretty good job of this. But I also felt a lot of shame around it too, was I think I would allow my relationships with my learners to matter even more than they did. I focused a lot on my need to be approved by my bosses to be like, you know, to transition my teacher pet-ness from grade school to… I wasn't the teacher's pet in college but you know, I did pretty well in college, and then to my bosses. I wanted that approval so much that I really… I really pushed my learners and sometimes to the detriment of our relationships. And whose independence is it anyway? Is it yours? No. Is it your bosses? No, it's theirs. It's their independence, and we're there for them.

And when we want to be really good teachers, but we don't exactly know how, or like, for me, I didn't know what's good enough. Like, what is trying my best? What does that look like? For me trying my best means working 14 hour days. But I really had to stop pushing my learners as much as I did. And really start listening, and caring. And even if they weren't talking. You know, I had a lot of learners who were mute. And I had a lot of learners who had shaken baby or who, you know, we're crack addicts at birth. And they didn't necessarily talk. But if I could just sit with them a little bit more. I think my teaching and my ability to understand their behaviors and them, would have progressed so much faster.

So those are just my thoughts. I'll run through them real quick. Again, I wouldn't let fear hinder me as much. I would sing more. I would ask more questions. I would say no more. I would create hobbies from my personal life, and I would allow my relationships with my learners to matter much more than I did.

I hope that this was helpful for you, and that this shorter episode time works for you. I want to make these as tangible for you as possible. If you'd like, take a second and journal some of the things that you would have done differently, and then you'll have something to share with another first year teacher who inevitably wants to pick your brain, take you to coffee or if you have the opportunity to be a mentor with somebody. Having those insights really helps the next generation. And if you are a first year teacher, I want to know what you think about all this. As always, find me on Instagram, it's my favourite place. Or Facebook or LinkedIn. I am at all three at the moment. Shall we get on the tikky toks? Should we do Tik Toks? I'm not too sure. Not too sure about that just yet, but we're thinking about it. Anyway, find me on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn right now, and let me know what you think and how you're going to use this information to take a step forward.