This blog is written especially for brand new teachers entering the profession. Most have had four years of university experience learning how to develop lessons that address curricular standards, differentiate for multiple learning styles and modalities, manage classrooms, and integrate technology.  I was once that brand new teacher; ambitious, creative and ready to change the world. Then, on the first day I taught school, I had just told the students my name when the fire alarm sounded and we had a fire drill. I didn’t know the procedure. I didn’t know where we were supposed to go. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do! In all four years at a university, I had not one lesson on fire drills! Fortunately for me, all the children stood up, got in a line and proceeded outside to the basketball court where they waited in a line. I counted them and made sure I had them all. Fortunately again, they all followed me back inside the building. It wasn’t even nine o’clock and I realized I wasn’t really as ready as I thought I was at eight. That was precisely when I realized I didn’t know what I didn’t know. 

Thirty five years of classroom experience and more than 300 fire drills have transpired since that first alarm. As I reflect, I realize that I didn’t really know anything. The classroom is a great place for learning for the children but it is also a place where the teacher learns something every single day. In this book, I have compiled a list of fifty things I wish I knew before I got my own classroom in hopes that it will help prepare you for what is ahead as well as relieve some of the angst of feeling like you are assembling the airplane while flying it. 

The blue text notates how being a new teacher relates to children being served in the Program for Exceptional Children, authored by Pamela Webster, thirty five year veteran of PEC.