Teacher Magic: Three Things I Wish I Had Done in Year One
By Carol Pelletier Radford
Welcome to teaching! As you open the door to your first classroom, you will be filled with excitement and perhaps some nervousness. I would like to share some of the wisdom I have gained through the years. These are my personal top three “Teacher Magic” tips.
Engage Personally with Each Student
This means sharing who you are as a person. Not all the personal details of your life, but the big things like why you chose to be a teacher, why you are happy to be at this school, and what you like to do when you are not teaching.
It also means you need to know the big things in each of your students’ lives and what they like to do when they are not in school.
Connect with Other Beginning Teachers
Other beginning teachers in their first three years understand what is going on and can relate to your initial fears. If there are no beginners at your school, reach out to other schools, get an online support group, or find other ways to connect across your district. Be open to ideas, but always trust your own inner voice before implementing any routine or practice.
Solve Problems with an Experienced Mentor
Find a mentor if you are not assigned one. Reach out to teachers you admire. Don’t be shy or afraid to share your struggles. In addition to a one-on-one mentor, you may benefit from group mentoring. Group mentoring is a way to share your common problems and create possible solutions.
If you intentionally…
Share who you are and know each of your students personally,
Connect with other beginning teachers, and
Solve your problems with experienced teachers,
YOU will maintain your balance, stay inspired, and even have a little fun in your first year!
This is teacher magic, and YOU are the magician.
Your First Year – and Every Year – Start With Radical Love
By Crystal Belle
The first day of school always reminds me of renewal: another opportunity to replenish the mind, reconnect with friends, and be re-inspired by knowledge. The beginning of the school year can also create anxiety due to the intense preparation for teachers, administrators, staff, and families. One way to begin your school year in a way that feels more affirming is to start with radical love.
In my book, Start with Radical Love: Antiracist Pedagogy for Social Justice Educators, I explain the ways that teaching is directly connected to love, stressing that “to teach is an act of love, or it should be, as it facilitates the acquisition of knowledge through a relationship of care” (p. 2). The deeper we care for our students and continuously demonstrate to them that we care about their whole selves (not only academics), the more we build trust with them to be their best selves inside and outside of school.
As another school year begins, I have come up with 3 helpful tips for starting your first school year as a teacher with radical love to cultivate communities of care and critical learning.
- Learn students’ names and be sure you have the correct pronunciation. When we learn students’ names quickly, we show them that we care about who they are and where they are coming from. Names also have personal histories, which can be explored through back-to-school icebreakers using the question: How did you get your name?
- Show genuine interest in students’ lives. A great way to get to know your students at the beginning of the year is to provide “All About Me” surveys, which include questions about favorite foods, books and hobbies. Make sure you build in students’ interests thereafter directly into the curriculum, to boost engagement and personalize learning more.
- Create a safe emotional environment: Creating emotional safety is paramount for radical love teaching and learning practices. We can create such spaces by encouraging questions and participation without judgment. We can also create emotional safety by addressing mistakes as learning opportunities.
A new school year is a great opportunity to pour radical love into our students through intentional kindness that honors students’ academic, personal and social success.
For Your Bag of Teaching Tricks
By Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey
We often hear veteran teachers referring to their “Mary Poppins”-like bag of teaching tricks, those tried-and-true learning and teaching strategies they instinctively know when and how to use. They always seem to know just what is needed in any classroom scenario.
As a new teacher, you may not be sure what works best yet, and that’s ok! For now, a good rule of thumb is to consider your colleagues and borrow from their bags. To get you started, we’ll share one of our favorite strategies for new teachers: Exit Slips. Feel free to steal this one, make it your own, and add it to your own bag of teacher tips and tricks. Some day you might share it with another new teacher!
Exit Slips
This closure activity provides students with an opportunity to consider what they have learned, and helps you use that data formatively for the next lesson. An exit slip guides students to summarize and consolidate new learning, monitor their own learning, and reflect. It also provides you with data to adjust your instruction. It’s a win-win, so what are you waiting for?
Strategy in Action
- Reserve a few minutes at the end of class for students to respond to a prompt.
- Use prompts that align with your purpose for assessing learning.
Examples of Prompts
- Prompts that document learning
- Write three concepts you learned today
- How could you use this knowledge outside of the classroom?
- Prompts that emphasize the process of learning
- I still don’t understand …
- Based on what you learned today, what do you need to learn next?
- Prompts that evaluate the effectiveness of instruction
- What helped you with your learning today? What got in the way?
- Collect the responses at the door or have students self-assess and determine their level of understanding.
This is just one of many strategies you can use to increase student learning as you gain experience in the classroom. And who knows? It just might increase your teacher learning as well.
