More Teaching Advice, Now With 85% More Tenure!

It’s been quite a while since my last post. I would love to give all kinds of excuses, but really it is just because blogging is hard. It takes time and focus and effort and focus and I’m really…lazy. Like extremely, debilitatingly, unimaginably lazy.

This was my third year teaching which means a whole lot of things, but most importantly it means that I am now part of the tenure club. It’s really hard to fire a teacher (not that I give them reasons to fire me), but it is borderline impossible to fire a teacher with tenure (again, not trying to get fired, just pointing out a fact). According to NEA statistics, about a third of teachers quit before finishing three full years. Since I not only made it through the first three, but also have signed my contract for a fourth, I have been feeling a bit reflective about all the things I have learned over these three years. The first blog entry I ever wrote was advice to first year teachers. Since it has been almost two years since that list (which I cannot stand to look at anymore, by the way), I wanted to cover some bits advice to get through your first three years.  So…yeah…segues are lame.

1. Get a bedtime. This comes first for one primary reason: I suck at it. Seriously. I would love to blame my lovely fiancée for being my reason to always stay up later than I should, but realistically I rarely have a reason to actually stay up late. Even though I learned this lesson during student teaching, my ability to go to sleep on time has barely gotten better since then, despite the fact that the effects of a lack of sleep have definitely become more adverse. In my first year, a student being annoying when I was tired usually got some sort of request to shut his/her mouth hole. Now, my reaction is a bit closer to Bilbo’s when Frodo refuses to let him see his old ring. Eventually, no amount of coffee that you can drink will give you enough patience to deal with the sometimes frustrating actions of a teenager the way a decent night’s sleep can.
2. Don’t physically take your work home with you (if you can avoid it). My first year, I was always taking stuff home to grade. It sucked out loud. I always felt like I was working against the clock, I regularly ran behind on grading (like two weeks behind), and it got worse each time there was a big assignment. Because I forced myself to always do these marathon grading sessions, even simple grading became torturous, causing me to avoid all grading whenever possible, which of course led to more long grading sessions.  It took most of my first year to figure out that planning periods are for, get this, planning. And grading. And proctoring. And all of the other things that have to be done on any given day. And not reading every meaningless article that I spent years of college training myself to find. Basically, as is the case in most of teaching, if you are doing what you are supposed to do, you don’t have as much crap to do later. The questions that I always use before putting papers in my bag are these: First, does this HAVE to be graded and given back tomorrow? And if not, will I have a chance to grade it in the next day or so? If you have a planning period that doesn’t have to be dominated by meetings, proctoring, or what have you, then why take work home?
3. No one likes standardized tests. Deal with it. With the exception of the companies that make and grade them, everyone hates standardized tests. Students hate them because they are hard (for some kids), can keep them from graduating, and require them to sit still and pay attention for a long time. Administrators hate the tests because they have so much influence over the amount of funding and the accreditation of the school. Teachers hate them for more reasons than could ever be listed. For those of you not actively involved in the modern education system, think of standardized testing as a bench press. You walk in, I throw 225lbs on the bar (the standard for the NFL combine), and tell you to do as many reps as you can. You can practice all year, but realistically, some people will throw the bar up 40 times and some will struggle to keep it from crushing their ribs. Such is the case with standardized tests; some students have done enough in the past and have learned enough over the year to pass, and some hope it doesn’t crush their brains. HOWEVER, you have no control over it, so get the complaints out as quickly as you can. One day America will move away from standardized testing, but that is a long way off.
4. You do not need teenage friends. There is a fine line between a teacher that shows respect for his/her students and one that students know they can walk all over. I wish I could claim to be an expert on classroom management and making sure you are always positive with the kids, but I make mistakes here still because of that whole being a human thing. Just remember, you do not need these students to be your friends for them to respect you and for your classroom to be a place for learning. Some days they will hate you. Tough. They are teenagers and have a long life to get over it. Do not let their opinions of you on a particular day break you down at all. Which brings me to my next point…
5. You HAVE to have a way to blow off steam. Or like five ways. I imagine this is the case for any job, but teaching has stress coming in from so many different directions that you HAVE to have a few different ways to blow off steam. Two of my personal favorites are contact sports and a standing appointment for a few beers with other teachers on Fridays. I know teachers who are into pool, or kickball, and even one who is into cleaning and organizing her life into a rainbow of color coordination (seriously, OCD is a disease). My first year, I barely did anything outside of teaching and coaching; I didn’t work out, I didn’t play sports as I had the previous eighteen years of my life, and yet I was more exhausted and stressed than I have ever been. By making time for things that let you blow off steam, you will be less stressed. You owe that to yourself and to the kids who have to deal with you daily. Otherwise, you might punch one in the face, which is typically frowned upon.
6. Coach or sponsor something at your school. Many teachers come in, teach their lessons, plan, grade, and go home. When you do that, you miss out on a huge opportunity to see your kids in a different light. I’ve coached rugby for three years and cross country and football for one each. I started coaching because I love sports and remember the benefits that I received from playing them growing up, but I have kept coaching because it gives me a chance to see many kids in a very different light than in the classroom. I get to see kids who are like I was and care about as much about school as they do about a Milli Vanilli cassette tape. But when that kid steps onto a practice field, suddenly they are dedicated, focused, and excited to learn something new. The same opportunities are there for the non-athletically inclined; our school has a drama club, anime club, and had a video game club for a couple years as well. Anything you have a passion for, there are probably kids who do too. It also carries the added benefit of making you look even more important and indispensable to the administration, which cannot be overstated in this day and age.
7. People are going to think you are a grown up when you tell them what you do. Even if you laugh every time one of a kid tries to discuss what something “do do” (I am actually smiling right now at this), people see teachers as grown-ups. This year at graduation, I had a parent of a kid I coached thank me for everything I did over the past two years. Times like that remind me that when people look at teachers, they assume teachers all have their lives together. I still have to hold back laughter when a kid rips a loud fart, yet somehow I helped this kid. Things like this happen regularly; especially when you feel as though you have done nothing of value and then suddenly a kid tells you thank you or explains how you helped. Even if you are like me and still don’t feel like any kind of an adult, to a kid you are a wellspring of information. Also crotchety. You are crotchety and out of style.  Might as well invest in some suspenders, reading glasses, and holiday themed sweaters!