Last updated on December 12th, 2023 at 05:42 pm
My first year of teaching, nearly a decade ago, wins the award for the most challenging year of my career by a dumpster fire landslide. Though I hold so many special and fond memories of my class that year, there were overwhelming challenges I had to face just trying to find my footing as a first-year teacher. I’ll try to articulate exactly why this was before I phase out the memories completely.
So…why even bother putting this out there so many years later?
First, I didn’t have a spare second that year to write any of my experiences down. Now I’m finally getting around to recording some of the struggles.
I want other first-year teachers out there to know they’re not alone, and to possibly tease some advice out of this story. If it helps anyone stay in or enjoy the profession even a day longer, I’d know that sharing this was worthwhile.
Aside from my hope to help to first-year teachers, it could open some eyes of other stakeholders. I think the problem of teacher attrition affects us all in society. It’s a growing, ballooning, issue that some would rather push down and snap the lid over, but it’s something we’ll have to face eventually.
Might as well hear it from a former teacher.
My first teaching job
After graduating with my Elementary Education degree, I settled into my hometown and readied myself for the interviews. While I nervously squeaked through a handful of round-table style interviews and even taught a sample lesson for one school, the summer blazed on in relative quiet– I hadn’t gotten that coveted job offer yet.
I distracted myself with a job that utilized my flying fingers– for minimum wage, I sat at a computer transcribing the audio for numerous TV shows and recordings. It was in this job that I experienced and meticulously took down the drama of talk shows, wrestling matches and high-stress cooking competitions. It’s where I learned terms like IRA, shallot, and the flying clothesline. This assortment of random knowledge accumulated, and would have lent enviable trivia skills.
But I finally got a call from a school.
I was offered a first-grade teaching position in mid-August, and received my keys to the room a week before students were to arrive.
1. First-year teachers are most likely to be hired last-minute
Can I overstate the height of stress for teachers hired so shortly before school starts?
The difference is stark. While experienced teachers, even those with one year under their belt, usually get the advantage of knowing their position ahead of time, many first-year teachers start at the bottom of the pecking order. There is usually a “take what you can” mentality.
Granted, I know experienced teachers get shuffled around during the summer and last-minute as well. But there’s truly nothing like not being a teacher and suddenly having to prepare a mini world for a tribe of students that will be coming through your door in a matter of days. A group of students you suddenly need to keep occupied, educated and safe whether you’re ready or not.
Most of my time in that short week to prepare got sucked away by meetings I was supposed to attend. Any extra minutes went toward assembling furniture and scrubbing up the pools of sticky floor cleaner juice that had adhered impossibly to what were supposed to be my students’ cubbies. True story.
When the students came that first day, to a setting somewhat recognizeable as a classroom, the day transpired in a flurry of midnight-gathered activities. I stumbled through the rest of the week still improvising, printing, and throwing together lessons to fill 7.5 hours the moment that my little scholars were shuttled off on their busses.
It was an exhausting cycle of just surviving the day to eat, sleep, and do it all again the next day.
I was caught in survival mode until November. We had our first long break– a wonderful weeklong respite for Thanksgiving– and I felt what it was like to be a human without a fritzed out central nervous system.
Going back after the break proved to be my worst instance of Sunday Scaries in my career. I vomited that morning as I ruminated over all I had to do and all I had to face.
2. First-year teachers have the least amount of resources
It’s regrettable– yet well-known– that this occupation somehow encourages and requires the accumulation of supplies. From lesson plans and copies to books and other classroom materials, teachers start stocking up their collections.
The first-year teacher has few resources. They do not have the advantage of years spent in gathering the things necessary for their students and for teaching.
I ended up with a chaotically random classroom library– my room had been a dumping ground for the unwanted items of the other teachers. And I rolled with it for a while, until I could get my head above water. The books were not labeled or leveled or really anything newer than 1996 printings, but we had a classroom library.
An often overlooked resource that first-year teachers lack is time.
An experienced teacher has at least ideas, even if she is starting in a new grade level, of what lessons to teach. There is less time needed to prepare for the days to come.
By contrast, the first-year teacher, in need of precious time the most, is bogged down by the things we often forget. Learning the various school systems like the gradebook, attendance, and email. Having to attend more trainings. Even mentorship, which can be helpful, takes time.
3. New teachers have less perspective
I don’t mean this in a degrading way, it’s just simply the context of being new to the job.
When I graduated with my ed degree, after a year spent in a teaching internship, I thought I had a firm grasp on all of the dazzlingling intricate moving parts of the gig.
Once my name was affixed to the door and students were on my roster, I discovered my grasp was a lot more loosey goosey than I could ever imagine.
There are a few things in life you need to actually experience on your own plunged way into the deep end to wholly understand, and I believe teaching is one of them.
The thing is, first-year teachers are caught in a wind tunnel of flying tasks. Decision fatigue and confusion sets in.
Lacking the perspective of a seasoned teacher, I completed tasks chronologically, not based on the level of importance. I had little idea the true weight of each and every need. I just had to tread water. This led me to, for example, spend hours sharpening pencils or creating a reading center activity when I could have been designing reusable systems.
Experienced teachers have their classroom systems in place or know what needs to be done to quickly implement them. First-year teachers must find the systems that are workable for them through a lot of trial and error– while teaching and being expected to do everything the established teachers are doing.
I drew up some graphics below to compare the situation. Seasoned teachers have existing systems they can put in place quickly, freeing them up to focus on instructional needs. Meanwhile, the newbie teachers get swamped trying to test and implement their classroom systems while also attending to their other duties.
4. First-year teachers lack meaningful support
The urge to prove oneself as a first-year teacher is common and understandable but oh-so-unhelpful.
First years are leaping at the chance to validate themselves to admin, the other teachers, to the parents, to students. And those leaps are costly.
No teachers need the gift of time more than first-year teachers, and yet the newbies tend to hand off their hours the most.
The school needs a track coach? I ran a 5K once, sign me up! We need a Newspaper Club sponsor? Of course, I have no better use of my time.
In the dizzying array of extracurricular school needs, first-year teachers have a hard time saying “No” when that’s absolutely what they should be doing.
The urge to prove also gets in the way of seeking and obtaining meaningful help.
I remember when I was brand new to a long-term subbing position in a new classroom and school mid-year with no more than a sheet of paper to guide me and struggling mightily to get my bearings. The principal stopped by after a few days to ask me what questions I had.
I had every question, but I didn’t want to say that, lest he regret letting me do this glamorous job.
So I asked, “What should I assign the students for homework?”
My point is that first-year teachers likely need extra support. It’s more than okay, even if you were top of your class in the education program. It’s okay to need help even if you come from a long line of teachers or you’re convinced you were destined to do this since you were 2. It’s acceptable to seek assistance, even if you made it sound like you were Mrs. Frizzle/Joan of Arc during the interview.
First-year teachers need more support.
How to help first-year teachers
Looking back, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. So any form of a meaningful mentorship would have been so valuable to me.
I know it’s hard for experienced teachers to imagine what it’s like, (because you can’t unknow what you know) but if you’re a seasoned teacher with any interest in mentoring, whether formally or informally, I think that would make a huge difference in keeping teachers in the profession.
Another important thing to give first-year teachers is time.
New teachers are likely frantically caught up in the huge pile of to-dos. They barely have a moment to even reflect on their practice, that prized trial and error they need to tinker with to establish the basics of who they are as teachers.
So if you’re in the position of freeing up more time for a new teacher, please do so.
How to stay strong as a first-year teacher
My last bit of advice is for the first-year teachers out there, going through the thick gravy of it as I type. I empathize with you. I remember the struggle distinctly.
If you’re drowning in the workload, I encourage you to ruthlessly cut out any unnecessary tasks. Set up systems in the classroom and in your own workflow as much as possible.
If it’s any consolation, know that it will get easier with each system you set up. Once you get the ball rolling on one thing, if it’s well constructed, it can be self-running. Think about daily, weekly classroom occurrances that can be simplified and systematized so that you can focus your energies elsewhere.
Keep working on your systems, and the load will gradually get lighter, like a slowly accumulating compound interest.
And guess what? By the end of the year, you’ll breathe in the deep victory of having made it.
And you might even get to experience what it’s like to start your second year of teaching, the seasoned teacher that you now are.
I’m rooting for you.
