Title: In First Year of Teaching, Acting More, Reacting Less, Can Reduce Anxiety
Source/Author/Date: neaToday, Sara Ketcham, 10/13/16
Url Link: neaToday
Key Points: In this article, a third year High School teacher dispenses some advice on how to survive your first year without drowning. She lays out some practical strategies for staying on top of work instead of letting it overwhelm you. She also emphasizes finding a healthy work/life balance, which is critical for maintaining your sanity.
Relevance While This is written for brand new teachers (which we all will be), the advice and tips are useful reminders for all teachers to try to implement not only to help them be better teachers, which obviously benefits their students as well.
Great article to look at as we venture towards our own classrooms (or if you have yours already set!). The practices and advice are important to help maximize efficiency and reduce the turnover that the industry frequently sees.
ReplyDeleteSince I'm in my own classroom, and finishing my masters, this articles fits perfectly with how I feel. I feel that instead of a district helping you, they make you more anxious, because there are expectations that they have for you. And classrooms have 40 kids in them. So I agree with the suggestions, but I do know that I have to keep picking my battles. I have to create or find a lot of my own materials. So I do know that going forward it will get easier.
ReplyDeleteI like that the author brings up the importance of prioritizing your life both inside and outside of school. One thing we always have to remember as teachers is the importance of basic needs being met, so remembering to meet our own will help us to better serve our students.
ReplyDeleteI also appreciated how the author emphasized prioritizing your personal life as well as your "classroom" life. A small amount of planning for meals and sleep(!) will go a long way in reducing stress and expense each week. Tips like purposefully anticipating challenges and avoiding reacting are habits that can be cultivated to help build a successful, fruitful career as an educator. These are great tips for first year as the new teacher organizes a classroom and develops a full year of lesson plans.
ReplyDeleteThis was a fun read. As I read through it, however, I began to wonder why we feel so anxious. We can do it. We know we can do it. But, what about using "teaching masters" alongside new teachers? These would be retired teachers who volunteer to act as a mentor in the classroom with the new teacher, if the new teacher wants the help. The mentor teacher could start out 5 days a week, then taper down as needed until the new teacher feels confident. Or, it could be done on an as-needed basis. I think this would solve the problem of new teachers' anxiety at being thrown into the deep end of teaching. It would also help society as a greater whole give value to people as they age through our society. Too often, as people retire, so much information and experience goes with them. Just as we nurture the minds of young people, we should value the minds of older people. We should be using that experience as a cushion to soften the anxiety of new teachers.
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