Two things I wish I knew when I started this wild ride into teaching
After taking a break from the financial industry, I first jumped into teaching as a substitute with no expectation that my career would permanently shift into the high school teaching space. After that year of subbing, I started as an intern at The Haverford School. Having attended an all-boys high school, I expected a sense of comfort and familiarity when walking into the upper school on my first day. What I underestimated was just how tight-knit high school communities could be. While I was eager to jump in and get to know the school and its students, I was an outsider. While the memories of that first year are still fresh, I thought I’d spend this first blog reflecting on a couple of things that helped me adjust to my first year as a teacher.
Be Seen!
As a new community member, it took time to understand that I was an entirely unknown quantity. Amidst the anxiety of my first year, it was so easy to fall into a rhythm of early arrival for lesson planning and free period lockdowns for additional lesson planning and grading. While lesson planning through that first year was undoubtedly imperative, the time I spent between classes walking the halls, popping into clubs, watching practices, and coaching afforded me relational leverage. This relational leverage quickly anchored my teaching philosophy and approach to each lesson.
I found that the quickest and most authentic means to my welcoming into the high school community was by meeting the students in their spaces and learning about their passions and interests. Crazy right?! Looking back, it seems obvious, but it was so easy to feel under a microscope that first year. I viewed everything through a “me-centric” lens: my classes, my lessons, my classroom management, my teacher evaluation, etc.… Building authentic relationships took time. In hindsight, it certainly had the highest return on investment of anything I did in my first year.
Living and Dying By the Lesson
Don’t do it! That first year, a mentor told me that all new teachers live and die by the lesson. He explained that no lesson is perfect. It is far more essential to zoom out and account for your students’ academic journey rather than grasp on to each lesson as if that one class will launch your students into a new realm of academic achievement. His perspective was extremely helpful as I tried to navigate a new curriculum, school, and career. Accounting for the skills I wanted my students to learn reframed my approach to each lesson and the way I measured “success” each day.