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Thursday, September 13, 2007
New Teachers: Who Wouldn’t Give For A Clean Slate?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I got the chance to interview Atlanta teacher Monica Groves last week, the subject of the new Sundance Channel documentary about the trials and tribulations of a first-year teacher, which is airing again tonight.
Can you imagine TV cameras following you around on your very first job, capturing every mistake for all the world to see?
Ms. Groves, 25, seems to have taken it all in stride.
After talking with her, I started thinking about something she said — about how, with every new school year, teachers have the opportunity to re-invent themselves. They can learn from past mistakes, change their strategies and commit to trying their best all over again.
After two years at Atlanta’s Young Middle School, Ms. Groves left to pursue her master’s degree in education. Now she’s back at the campus teaching some of the same students she had before.
She told me she’d actually been nervous about returning to a class of students whom she had taught in sixth grade. She worried whether she’d be able to start over with them now that they were eighth-graders.
“Especially as a new teacher, those first years you’re learning a lot, so your approach may change,” she explained.
I wonder: How many other new teachers wouldn’t give for a clean slate after their first years in the classroom?
