This past year, I definitely think I focused on the wrong things during pre-planning. One of which was the way my classroom looked. Don't get me wrong, it's a good idea to make you and your students feel at home in your classroom by decorating and rearranging. However, "nesting" should not be your first concern. I learned this the hard way.
I had a beautiful room that I was very proud of during open house and on the first day of school. However, after I got home from my first day of school (in tears might I add) I realized that I was no where near prepared for what I had gotten myself into.
My students were completely different from what I was expecting. You see, I moved 2 hours away from home for this job. You know how the job market is for new teachers.. I had no idea that the culture would be completely different at this school. I lived in a small town in Georgia, and I was teaching at a small town in Georgia. I thought my students and I would have some similar backgrounds and thoughts. Not at all.
I also wasn't prepared for the level at which my students were at. I was told during my interview that I was teaching Math Support. My classes would consist of students who did not pass the math portion of the standardized test for Georgia. I knew going into this position that I needed to support my students at their learning level. I was not told however, about the students' discipline problems. It seems, low achievement and discipline problems are a "which came first, the chicken or the egg" type situation. Some students misbehave in order to "look cool" or to get out of doing the work when they cannot do the math. Others can't do the math because they have been busy misbehaving instead of learning. Either way, on the first day of school, I found out that my classroom management was not tight enough.
Here are a 3 things that I should have done before focusing on decorations:
Ask the hard questions - Don't be blindly happy about getting your first job, or that dream job you have always wanted. Ask your principal the hard questions. If you think your principal is sending sunshine up your skirt, then ask someone down the hall from you.
- What kind of issues did the last teacher encounter in this position?
- What types of difficulties do you think I will encounter in this position?
- How can I combat these difficulties or issues?
Plan, plan, plan for the worst case scenario - This is self explanatory. Plan like your students know absolutely nothing about school behavior and classroom procedures. If you assume.. you know that saying.
Start off strict - This is the one piece of advice that I swear every teacher in the building gave me after I started off my year the wrong way. They always said something along the lines of "start off with the brakes on, and you can let off as the year goes by."
