I am a first year teacher and I am extremely frustrated and ready to quit. I am making almost $49,000 a year so the money is great , but I can not handle the stress (the students and the workload). I am just looking for some words of encouragement.
As others have said, it absolutely gets easier. Your first year is tough, but if you focus on a couple things, it'll get better.
On the academics:
- Focus on being super-organized. When you take the time to make a great unit on _____ subject, be SURE you can find it next year so you don't have to do it again. It won't help you a bit RIGHT NOW, but it'll make your life easier in the future.
- Even though you're super-busy, take time to evaulate every lesson, every unit as soon as it's done. What worked well? How can you adapt those same ideas for another unit later? What didn't work well? What was the problem? Whether it was that the students were missing some piece of prior knowlege, or that you didn't allow enough time, or that you assigned something that was just beyond the kids' grasp, figure out WHY it didn't go well. Maybe you can't make it better for this unit right now, but it'll help you get better in the future.
- Vary your instruction. You may love reading plays out loud and having the kids do cross-word puzzles, but if you do those specific activities every week
they'll become stale. So do those one week, but then the next week have the kids act out scenes from the play or make posters to share with the class, and then have them do a creative writing activity. Mix it up.
- Keep up with the grading. This never gets any easier as the years go by, but don't put it off. Having a huge stack of work to grade is always depressing.
- Every day -- or at least as often as possible -- don't leave 'til everything's planned, xeroxed, and laid out for the next day's lesson. You'll be more relaxed at home knowing that you don't have to make out a math quiz tonight and get to school early enough to xerox it.
- Ask for help. Hopefully you're working with experienced teachers, and they'll give you the benefit of their expertise.
On classroom management - this is
harder than academics.
- Each day ask yourself what little things didn't go well. If lining kids up for lunch was tough, or if transitioning from activity to activity wasn't going smoothly, or if kids were talking, ask yourself how you can specifically fix those problems -- then teach the kids your new methods. As the years go by, you'll incorporate those ideas from the beginning and things'll be easier. Here's just one example: When we take a bubble-sheet test, my students often don't bring pencils. For a long time I gave out my good pencils, and the result was that (either accidentally or on purpose) the kids stole them. Every time I gave a test, I'd lose 4-6 pencils, and I was buying those myself! One day at the office supply store, I saw a box of shorty golf pencils with no erasers. Now those are the ONLY pencils I'll give to kids. They hate those pencils. I'm still using that same first box of shorty pencils because the kids -- when given the choice to use my inferior pencils or dig through their backpacks -- actually HAD PENCILS all along. It's just that as long as I was giving out good pencils, they preferred to sit back and let me take responsibility for their writing utensils. You pick up little things like that as you gain experience.
- Call parents early in the year. At best, you get them on your side. At worst, they can't say later that you've been incommunicative.
The beginning of the school year is crazy for every teacher.
This is so true. I have my lessons laid out for the whole semester, my copies made for the first 9-weeks -- literally, there's nothing I need to do to prepare academically -- and still I'm stressing over my long list of things to do right now. I haven't yet touched IEPs, seating charts, emergency plans, club materials, department requirements and more.
That's amazing money. You work 7 hours a day, 180 days a year... That's almost $39 an hour! To be making that with no experience is phenomenal! Lucky you.
We're
with students 7 hours a day, 180 days a year, but that doesn't include planning lessons and activities, meetings and meetings and meetings, tutoring after school, mandatory club activities, mandatory sports activities, contacting parents, grading papers, documenting every last thing we do, preparing special activities for special needs kids, keeping up with our webpages, cleaning the classroom, and more!
You're right though; the OP is making a good salary for a teacher. I don't make that much, and it's my 20th year.
Thank you! Well put! I don't get paid to work in my room at school over the summer, so it will be ready for the first day of school.
Yes, in the first years I taught, it always seemed that being back 4-5 days before the students was ample time to "get everything ready" . . . but in reality, other people fill up that time. Whole-staff meetings, department meetings, small group meetings, Open House day. I personally deal with stress though advanced planning and organization -- this often eliminates the source of the stress. So I discovered years ago that it's best for me to come in over the summer and work a few days (even though it's without pay) to get my room in order (every year all the furniture is moved out for a good, thorough cleaning, so lots of moving is always necessary). If I come back to school with my room organized and clean, my lesson plans prepared, my copies made . . . I can approach the back-to-school days without stress.
But getting back to the OP's original question. I certainly wasn't able to do that in my first couple years. That's something you work up to.
I am unclear why teachers think that they are the only profession who arrives early, stays late, takes work home, etc.
No one said that other professions don't take work home too. The point WASN'T that other people don't work hard -- it was that teachers cannot complete their job in 7 hours a day, 180 days a year.
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