so here's my list of things that helped me survive my first month of teaching!
//1//
prayerrrrr
and so much of it. my sister-in-law (the one who got married this past summer!) wrote me the most encouraging letter when i got hired, and in it she challenged me: "if you find yourself needing to be dependent on God every single day, you're doing it right!"so, every day on my walk from school to the train, i make a point to be specific in telling God just how much i need him. i spend that walk thanking him for what went well in my lessons that day, and i give him total credit, along with pleading for his guidance in each class the next day.
//2//
using every spare moment in the day
on a typical day, i get one prep period (and every other week i get 3 prep periods...confusing, i know). this means that i need every minute of the school day to grade papers, make copies of handouts, and submit the next week's lesson plans (that i made from scratch, because it's my first year, remember?). i get to school suuuper early, and i apologize to kind, loquacious colleagues when i am furiously scrawling quiz scores into my gradebook because the period is about to end!
//3//
picking my outfits out the night before
ain't nobody got time for trying to find that one skirt that you swore was washed but mayyyybe it's at the bottom of the laundry basket...
//4//
stumbling upon this website
my goal is for every class period to get students up and moving, tier the instruction (so kids at any level can understand!), and have them writing and speaking spanish. this website is a really great conglomeration of interactive games for spanish class (that could be adapted for any class!).
//5//
talking to other teachers
i talked to my old high school spanish teacher, other teachers i work with, and anybody tied to the field of education because i know i'm a newb and i know i need help! like when i took a broad survey of how to grade participation, and based on all the different systems people told me they used i synthesized them into my own.
what's new with you? what's helped you survive being new at something?
my goal is for every class period to get students up and moving, tier the instruction (so kids at any level can understand!), and have them writing and speaking spanish. this website is a really great conglomeration of interactive games for spanish class (that could be adapted for any class!).
//5//
talking to other teachers
i talked to my old high school spanish teacher, other teachers i work with, and anybody tied to the field of education because i know i'm a newb and i know i need help! like when i took a broad survey of how to grade participation, and based on all the different systems people told me they used i synthesized them into my own.
what's new with you? what's helped you survive being new at something?
