AJC.com > Blogs > Get Schooled > Archives > 2007 > September > 13 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USNew 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?
Comments
By Amber
September 14, 2007 9:18 AM | Link to this
The first year teaching is definitely the hardest. During my first year - six years ago now - I just felt like I was trying to keep my head above water.
I think every teacher has ideas about what their classroom is going to look like: What they’re going to teach, what kinds of relationships they’re going to form with their students…a perfect picture of the “educating angel.” Then the first day comes and reality hits hard. You realize that those four years you spend majoring in education really didn’t teach you anything about what you really need to know. Things like what to do when you have a student who has the ability to throw a whole class off with their disruptions or when a student you care so much about seems to do nothing but disrespect you.
As you spend more time in the classroom and grow as a teacher, you learn your own special methods to use in those situations…and you learn how to set the tone for the year to prevent many of those difficult situations from happening in the first place.
The first day of school sets the tone for a new year and a new start. How teachers carry themselves and present their expectations will affect the rest of the school year - And that fresh start at the beginning of the year gives us a new beginning and hopefully improved methods and strategies that will make each year more successful than the last.
By Old School
September 14, 2007 11:49 AM | Link to this
The only way I would want a “do-over” is if the students were very much like the ones in my classes way back then…1975. They were respectful, expected to be challenged and rose to it, and were almost always prepared. They had goals and worked towards them. They looked after each other. We had no ISS and rarely OSS because a reprimand or being kept after class usually worked. The worst behaved kids were a small minority (and I’m talking numbers.) Now days the small numbers refer to the best behaved.
A do-over with the majority of the kids I have today? Heck NO!
By kaa
September 14, 2007 5:37 PM | Link to this
The reason I love being a teacher is because every year is a do over. I love that fact that I can start fresh on every September. I know that there will be some children I will never have to see agian. (Since I teach high school math, that is not always the case. One year I had a horrible student for Algebra I and the next year for Geometry boo hoo) I know that I can refine lessons from the previous year. I even think of my life in school years. August is my January.
By WhatWouldBridetDo?
September 14, 2007 6:23 PM | Link to this
Rather than a PR piece on one teacher, it might be more instructive to the readers to do a story on the THOUSANDS of teachers who have left APS due to the horrid teaching conditions (and the DOCUMENTED failure of APS officials to follow the law when it comes to rights of teachers).
But I guess THAT wouldn’t be inline with the political agenda of the AJC.
And the AJC wonders why its subscription rate is dropping faster than Michael Vick’s Q rating.