Tag: new school
-
24. Indulge Culture
It is kind of a bonus if you have some beautiful diversity among your students. In most classes, there are children who speak other languages, children who subscribe to different faiths, and children from multiple races and cultures. Honor every culture represented by making a child your resident expert on Jewish traditions, Muslim holidays, Buddhist…
-
25. Stay. In. Your. Lane.
Minding your own business is a full time job. Stay employed. You don’t have the time to hang out in the teacher’s work room and learn who is going through a divorce, who has been flirting with the PE coach or how that teacher lost so much weight. Yes, gossip is alive in every workplace…
-
26. Fire Drills
Go ahead and plan on it. You will have one fire drill per month that you teach school unless you don’t do it correctly, then you will have more than one a month. Fire drills are as predictable as the National Anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance. Older children know the drill while younger children…
-
23. Allergies and Medical Needs
Allergies are no joke. When I was in school, I don’t remember any student being catered to for any specific dietary needs but times have changed. If a child is allergic to peanuts and is offered peanut butter cookies as a snack, you could have an epi-pen emergency on your hands. It is your…
-
21. Consider
Consider. I love this word. Instead of telling someone what to do, I ask them to consider something else. It softens a command to a request. It is effective for teachers, students, and parents. Instead of telling a parent, “You need to have a certain time every day to read to your child,” say “Consider…
-
20. Evaluations
You are probably fully aware of how you will be evaluated as a teacher. If you are new to a grade level, a school, a district, or a state, you will most likely have more evaluations per year than someone who has been teaching the same grade in the same school for fifteen years. You…
-
18. Ask All the Questions
For three years, you can get a ton of forgiveness for not knowing how something operates. When a principal hires a teacher so new that the price tag is still on her ear, she knows what she is getting. She is counting on your creativity, technology savvy, innovation, and enthusiasm to contribute to the…
-
17. Make Friends with the Secretary, Head Custodian, Media Specialist and Lunch Lady.
You may think that you want to quickly impress your grade level chair or rub elbows with the principal. Nonsense. The four critical relationships for a new teacher are the school secretary, the head custodian, the media specialist and the lunch lady. Those people run the entire school. I can promise you the principal has…
-
15. When Responding to Emails that are Upsetting, Don’t Send.
Email is the most common way of communicating between a parent and a teacher. Emails are tricky. First, they are permanent. You can delete them but they still exist. When someone sends an email when they are emotional or especially upset, it sets a tone for an exchange of words that is hard to escape.…
Fire Drills 