Reality 101: CEC's blog for new teachers

John: Being the Early Bird

I am not a morning person by any stretch. I have been a night owl for as long as I can remember. In college I could do all-nighters regularly, but waking up for an 8 a.m. class was impossible. My morning routine often consisted of staying in bed until the absolute last possible minute, rushing through the shower, throwing on the first outfit I came across and running out the door to get to work on time. I’m never late, but it certainly wasn’t a foundation built for a successful day.

I recently read an e-book by Laura Vanderkam called What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast: A Short Guide to Making Over Your Mornings—and Life. The book was extremely helpful for me, and I highly recommend it if you are unsatisfied with your hectic morning routine. In the book she suggests three things that should be done before the rest of the world is awake: nurturing your career, nurturing your relationships and nurturing yourself. I have applied these three categories to my morning routine and have found them to be very beneficial.

Reality Check with Kathy: Three Years Ago I was Starting Over

Remember Kathy? She wrote for Reality 101 in 2009–10. Hailing from the Detroit area, Kathy now teaches life and vocational skills to young adults with autism and cognitive disabilities. Reality 101 is circling back with her for a Reality Check to get her perspective and sage advice for new teachers.

In 2009–10 when I was writing for Reality 101, I was a part-time job coach teaching custodial skills to 18–26 year-olds. Since then I have dusted off my teaching degree and have a full-time job teaching life and vocational skills to young adults with autism and cognitive disabillities in my local public school.

I’ve learned a lot in the last three years, and my experiences have provided me with the following list of tips to share with new teachers: 

John: Help! I’ve Fallen into Paperwork, and I Can’t Get Out!

Keeping paperwork organized is probably the biggest headache I have as a new teacher. In talking to many other teachers, experienced and new, I know I am not alone in the deluge of paperwork. I have been working on a system of practical ways to keep things organized and have found what I think is a pretty manageable system.

Of course, everyone is different, and I am continually tweaking my own system. Maybe something that I do will be helpful to you or get you thinking about an area you need a plan for that you have not thought of already.

Danielle: A High School Teacher’s Worst Nightmare?

I think it is very common for teachers to believe that it would be impossible for them to teach any grade other than the grade they teach. When I meet elementary school teachers, they tell me that they could never teach teenagers, I tell them I could never teach little kids, and then we both laugh and agree we could NEVER do middle school.

I’ve spent five years building my solid identity as a high school teacher, and four of those were as the teacher of primarily juniors and seniors. During my first year, I developed a firm belief that anyone under the age of 14 was perpetually sticky.

John: A Student’s Outlook on Going Back to School

I went to Wal-Mart recently and saw something that always makes me excited: school supplies. Fresh pencils, crisp notebooks, and brightly-colored folders always make me excited for a new school year. Students and parents eagerly scour the aisles with lists of school supplies required for each grade level. Kleenex® for all those snotty noses, disinfectant wipes for other messes, and of course, an apple for the teacher is all part of the back-to-school routine.

The beginning of the year can be the most exciting time of the school year for some students—and teachers. Sure, summer is ending, but the beginning of a new school year also means a fresh start. You have perfect grades in every class, you may have a new teacher (or new set of students), and you may even be moving up to middle school or high school! While the back-to-school time can be very exciting for students, it isn’t always exciting for some of them.

Allisence: School Day Jitters

Do you ever get so nervous that all you want to do is run? Maybe it’s before a big performance or right before making a speech in front of a large audience. Either way, those are situations where a little anxiety is expected, right? But how about going to work every day? Do you get nervous or scared about going to work everyday? Because I am always nervous about going to school.

It’s been seven months since the first day of school and every Sunday night, I still wonder if I can get up the next morning and make it to school so much so that sometimes, I think I should just quit. I honestly don’t know why I feel this way. My principal has told me that I’m pretty decent for a first year teacher, I know my students like me, and I really do love my job, but every Sunday night and especially the Sunday after a long break, all I want to do is run away and hide.

Theresa: Students Take on Testing

I feel like my life has been consumed by testing these last couple of weeks.  There has been the countdown to testing, and now the actual five days of testing. As I have been thinking about what I want to write for this blog entry, the only thing I can think of is testing. I’ve shared in my past entries about how testing frustrates me, and how I wish there was a test that gave a true measurement of my students. But this blog entry is going to focus on how I prepare my students to actually take the test.

Richard: Life Outside of Paperwork

This year has felt like a never-ending tsunami of paperwork, data collection, meetings, and feelings of being overwhelmed and frustrated. I often find myself getting stressed over getting IEPs completed and done to the very best of my ability, working on transition plans, creating innovative lesson plans, being proactive with my classroom management and addressing student behaviors, and then there is actually getting up and teaching; that I forget to stop and simply enjoy being in the profession that I will call home from here on.

Theresa: Learning to Let Things Go

This school year has felt so much different from the past two years.  There seems to be some underlying stress that is always present.  Looking around every day, I see teachers who are exhausted.  Everyone is holding onto their coffee cups for dear life in the morning, and they often get more coffee at lunch as well.  As pressure comes from all directions, administration, teachers, and students are all starting to feel it.

It seems like every year the students come in lower than the year before, and the bar for their performance is set higher and higher. All of the students in my school are expected to be “meeting” or “exceeding” on the standardized assessments. I am proud to say that we have done really well the past couple of years, and our school is no longer on probation. So now, we are working even harder to ensure that our students continue to do a great job. I feel like it is an endless job to accommodate and modify the curriculum in such a way that my students can show their growth and do well on the standardized assessments.

Theresa: Test-Taking Anxiety

I cannot believe that it is already the end of the first quarter! I am glad to say that I managed to input my grades and finish the IEP report cards well before they were due! I am starting to feel the effects of way too many things going on at once in my classroom and I really think my students are starting to feel it too.

Last week we took yet another standardized assessment. This one is a new one for us; it is based on the new Common Core State Standards. I really have mixed feelings on the assessment. I understand that my school district is trying to get a baseline for where the students are performing on the new Common Core State Standards. But is it fair to expect students to do really well on an exam revolving around standards that they are not being taught and to which the curriculum is not yet aligned?

Jessica: From Hopeless to Hopeful

That feeling of being overwhelmed is a recurring theme with my fellow bloggers, and I am compelled to throw my hat in the ring.

Here’s the deal: No matter what I do, I wish I could do more.

I work with my students, both individuals and small groups, all day long in varying push-in and pull-out sessions of 30 to 80 minutes. I hope I’m helping them, yet I always have that feeling in the pit of my stomach when the words “OK! I’ll see you tomorrow!” escape my lips. It’s that feeling that tells me, Gosh, I wish I had more time with them.

Theresa: Too Much of a Good Thing?

Disclaimer: I am not a super hero, nor do I claim to have super-human powers.

Collaboration. (sigh) It seems every time I turn around someone is talking about it. I almost feel like I need to put a dollar in a “swear jar” whenever I hear the word “collaboration.”

I understand that collaboration is a necessary part of my job in order for my students to succeed. However, I feel like the expectations placed on me in this area are unobtainable. As much as I would like to be in more than one place at a time, it is just not possible (hence the need for super-human powers—and maybe Richard’s cape).

Allisence: No Hope for Balance

Despite previous bouts of self-doubt and concern, I feel like my aides and I are finally starting to gel. Weekly AIMSweb progress monitoring has given me solid data that my students are making progress in both reading and math; my district’s special services director just informed me I’m getting a SMARTBoard this week; and somehow I’m still alive after a month of juggling writing lesson plans, doing paperwork, being a part of committees, and finishing up grad school.

Yeah, I’d say things are going pretty awesome right now. I know you’re thinking I just cursed myself as soon as I typed those words. I think so, too. But aside from that, I will share with you my biggest worry. My absolute biggest worry at the moment is that there’s no hope for balance in my life.

Theresa: Where Would We Be Without Mentors?

What defines a new teacher? According to the school district I work in, you are considered a new teacher for the first two years. (And here at Reality 101, it’s three.) Now that I am entering my third year of teaching, I wonder if I missed the finish line where one becomes less of a new teacher and more of a veteran teacher.

One sign that I have graduated from new teacher status is that I get more and more responsibilities at work. This year I have been asked to sit on administration interviews of teacher candidates and to take on students from different universities as they complete various requirements for their teaching courses.

As a first- and second-year special education teacher, I was lucky enough to receive mentoring services from an induction coach through the Chicago New Teacher Center. My coach last year gave me exactly the support I needed. When she came into my classroom, she would know if I was having a good day or a bad day; she would know when to take notes and when things should be “off the books.”

Richard: Where Did I Put My Cape?

What a first week! As a teacher in a self-contained classroom, I was aware that I would be teaching all the subjects to students in all grades, plus two elective courses. I was happy when I found out that I only had one eighth grader for one class, which meant I would only be teaching two grades for the majority of my day.

As the summer progressed, I decided to be proactive and begin lesson planning, which also helped me meet and build relationships with those need-to-know teachers who are the best of the best in their subjects.

Going into pre-planning, I felt assured that I was fully prepared and ready for my students. But by the end of day two, frustration consumed me. It was not the frustration that comes with setting up my first classroom or normal beginning-of-the-school-year stress. Rather, it was the sense that my school expected me to be Captain Planet.

Why Captain Planet? “Earth! Fire! Wind! Water! Heart! . . . By your powers combined, I am Captain Planet!”

Jessica: Hot Fun in the Summertime

I have two schools. First, there’s my working school. As the name suggests, it is the school where I work. It gives me paychecks and fun lunchtime conversations. I get a nice summer break from this working school.

Then, there’s my other school, the one I attend. I just finished the last of my credential courses and am now working on my master’s. This schooling sometimes feels like it will never end, which means that on good days I fancy myself the perpetual student, and on other days I call myself a glutton for punishment.

I’m entering my second summer in a row when I haven’t been truly “off” from school, due to textbook-reading and paper-writing assignments. This summer, I have the added pressure pleasure of these lovely, looming words: literature review.

Sheena: Expectations vs. Realities

Where in the world have I been these last few weeks? I’ve been trying to survive in a bureaucratic world that doesn’t make sense for idealistic thinkers like me.

Although I have not yet received a letter or pink slip from my school, I anticipate that I will not be offered a renewed contract or tenure at the end of the year. This year has been an incredible mountain of obstacles as I’ve attempted to advocate for my special education students by taking a collaborative, engaged role during lesson planning meetings. The word “passion” has often been used to describe my actions, goals, and value system, but the same word is sometimes equated with “aggression” whenever I attempt to interject an opinion. I have been entrusted to help develop lifelong skills and successes for my students with learning challenges, and yet I feel I am often not given an equal opportunity to share my ideas for effective teaching strategies.

Tenured teachers with no incentive to change have been boulders and windstorms along my path, and I honestly have very few resources in which to seek shelter, other than my faith, my family, my friends, and even this blog, which has served as a great outlet.

Reading through past journal entries often helps me remember past journeys on which I once felt that I would be lost forever, but eventually found a way to make it through. In one entry, I read the words of a woman I interviewed with who worked for UNICEF in Niger at the time. I inquired about any advice she had to pass along, and I remember being stunned by her yogic wisdom. She said that our expectations in life almost never meet the reality of our experiences; thus, the only way to be successful, to feel fulfilled, is to constantly meditate on our intentions.

Sheena: Life is Reasonable Again

Hi everyone! I know it has been a while since I last posted. Thanksgiving was a much-needed time to relax, rejuvenate, and regain focus. It was just what the doctor ordered.

Since my last blog entry, I’ve survived a hectic month of deadlines, IEP meetings, and paperwork – not to mention completing another graduate school class. With just 10 more work days before our winter break, life finally feels reasonable again! I believe everyone looks forward to breaks this time of year. For me, it’s relief from mid-year worries about raising test scores and squeezing in all the standards before benchmarks.

Yesterday my seventh-grade team had a Taco Day, and each teacher contributed a dish to our 20-minute lunch feast. In between bites of spicy salsa and chips, I felt a certain level of solidarity. We were all exhausted. Not only was it Wednesday, the dreaded middle of the week, but it was the middle of our school year. We sat and ate and laughed and bonded over food in the teachers’ lounge. It was perfect timing for a get-together, but it also symbolized our need to support each other. We sat together—with different backgrounds, different personalities, and different interests—and shared our own “Thanksgiving” meal.

Melissa: Work-Life Balance?

Is there such a thing as true work-life balance?

In college, I was busy with classes, homework, and my job. But as busy as I felt, I still found it pretty easy to make time for a football game or a movie. Then I graduated and got married. I was busy with my first year of teaching, in addition to figuring out how to blend “his” and “hers” into “ours” in our new little apartment. Fast-forward five more years to having a baby and starting to work on my first master’s degree. Work, baby, classes, baby . . . and baby some more.

Today I’m still a wife and mommy, teacher and student. But another role has come to the front lately: daughter.

Jennifer: A New Balance

Balancing work life with personal life certainly felt a whole lot more doable when my personal life was lacking extreme activity. I haven’t been writing as much as I’d like to lately because my personal life suddenly became a little out of control. I haven’t had enough time to really write, so by the time I finally get a moment to jot my thoughts down, shortening them into bite-size posts has been so difficult that I am currently staring at two drafts sadly begging for closure on my desktop.

The craziness didn’t just happen all at once, but slowly built up while I wasn’t paying attention. It was when I was recently sitting right in the middle of a massive, and I mean massive, pile of materials—a collection of current and that which has been passed down from a very, very long time ago—that I realized it had happened:  I had officially lost control.

I had previously thought this career choice somehow trained me to protect myself from that suffocating, overwhelming feeling that I was Never-Gonna-Get-Anything-Finished-How-in-the-World-Will-I-Get-This-Mess-Organized panic that has been causing me to recently forget everything up until just five seconds prior to each conscious moment. I was wrong, and I still can’t find my keys.

Jennifer: Taking Time to Make Mistakes

Recently I have been feeling somewhat overwhelmed at work. My one class has split into five different programs just to meet everyone’s needs, and it has become much too easy to get caught up in lesson planning and assessments and forget my basic roles as a teacher.

I’ve been coming home stressed, always with a million things on my mind. I’ve tried to keep that stress out of my classroom, but it hasn’t been easy. With testing season coming up, I want to make sure I squeeze in all the lessons that I have planned. I realized that my students have been feeling overwhelmed too, and I know it is because my teaching is either too fast or too much. But with everything that needs to get done, it has been difficult to figure out where to make changes to our schedule.

I am currently taking courses to complete a second credential, and last week one of my classmates shared a story that inadvertently helped me put my whole “rushing” problem into perspective. She told about a time when she and her master teacher watched a little girl drop her cookie in the dirt during lunch. The student came over and asked if she could go wash it off. My classmate almost said “no” and for her to get her back to her seat, but the master teacher stopped her and told the little girl to go ahead.

Ellen: Overwhelmed

She told me

once that the
year she went
to England
she painted
all her buttons
yellow so
she would remember
what the
sun felt like.

(Brian Andreas)

This is my third year as a teacher of young students with cognitive disabilities and it has been the toughest one by far. Not the teaching part—I love sharing in the learning process and helping my students make discoveries about themselves, their environment, and so much more. It’s the “everything else” part that’s so tough.

I’m not even talking about writing IEPs. I’m not going to say it’s my most preferred activity (the computer program we have here in Virginia makes it arduous sometimes), but I know that I’m doing it to shape my students’ entire learning trajectory in a powerful way. Some of the plans come together like lovingly made mittens at this point and it’s very satisfying.

I’m drained by the politics. Not petty lunchroom stuff, but top-down stuff. I’m frustrated by what I perceive to be a lack of accountability for teachers who aren’t making things work and a lack of support for teachers who are. It’s difficult for me to be an advocate for my students when I feel that my school’s practices are sometimes not in their best interests.

Ellen: Leaving the Kids at School

As a new teacher, one thing that was hard for me at first was my tendency to take school home with me. It’s inevitable to be preoccupied with your job sometimes, but I was engulfed.

Part of the problem was that I went straight from high school to college to graduate school right back to elementary school again as a teacher; school has been my schema since I was a baby. There’s also the fact that I never really literally leave work at work, because all teachers have more to do than can be done in the hours they’re paid to do it in, so stuff just gets done at home.

There was more to my inability to leave work at work, though. I simply didn’t let go of the thoughts of my students when I locked up my classroom at the end of the day. They didn’t go away when I closed my computer, sat down to dinner with a friend, or went to the grocery store. … In the busy moments and the still moments, my students from that first class were with me wherever I was.

Katie: Full-Time Work + Full-Time School = One Crazy Life

Juggling full-time graduate school and full-time work makes for one heck of a chaotic life. My to-do list is difficult to keep up with as it grows and grows throughout the week. To make matters worse, it’s hard for me to maintain my concentration on the task at hand. When I’m at work I want to do school stuff, when I’m at school I want to do work stuff, and on weekends I would rather spend my time with family, friends, and my pillow (oh how I miss the pillow!).

It’s hard to stay on top of all the work I need to complete, whether it be planning home visits, writing 10-page papers, posting in a discussion, planning for a team meeting, maintaining data collection sheets, and so on. I’m managing—but not as well as I would like to be. Basically, I’m overwhelmed. (By the way, here’s a sample data collection sheet, which one reader requested a while back.)

It’s hard for me to ask for help or know what exactly I need to be helped with, so . . . I try to take on everything! This is not necessarily the best route, I know, but I’m not quite sure what else to do. (I’m coming to realize that my perfectionist, control freak, “I’ll do it all myself” personality isn’t helping in this situation, but that is so hard to change.)

Keeping First-Year Stress in Check

By Barbara Baditoi

It’s the second week of school. The first week was a dream and hopefully the students will continue to be motivated to learn, while you do the job you were hired to do – teach. You have assessed all your students and know their strengths and weaknesses. The IEPs have been carefully scrutinized, and a plan established for monitoring goals and objectives. You are friends with everyone in the building and you know where to go for assistance.

Although building- and division-mandated meetings are over for the moment, you still need to learn how to write a computer-generated IEP, the alternative assessment training is scheduled for two days at the end of September, and the mentoring class is once a month. You also need to take two courses this year for additional certification.

Our close and happy friend, STRESS, starts creeping into your carefully planned schedule shortly after school starts. It can’t be avoided. The first year of teaching is always challenging. 

Self-reflection and Classroom Organization

Happy Presidents’ Day! Having a day off gives us time to enjoy our favorite activities and de-stress from day-to-day responsibilities. I enjoy gardening and walking my dogs. Both provide me with quiet time to reflect on what’s going well and what goals I’ll set next.

Self-reflection is an important tool for special educators. Ask yourself questions such as:

• What’s working the way I want it to during my day?
• What time of day, subject, and/or activity is the most difficult to complete?
• What feels hectic during the day?
• Which students are meeting their goals? Which students are not?
• Are students meeting my behavioral expectations?

When we take the time to reflect on our success in the classroom and what we want to improve, we’re able to monitor our progress, set goals for improvement, and give ourselves a much-needed pat on the back. In today’s blog, we’ll take a look at how we can further improve our classroom organization.

We All Get Frustrated

Originally posted March 10, 2008

By Carol Eisenbise
Special education teacher, Gilbert, AZ
CEC Treasurer, 2008

I’ve been a member of CEC since 1987. I currently teach students with emotional disabilities, grades 9 through 12, and all four core subjects. I’m proud to say that I am “highly qualified” in all four areas.

When I decided to blog about frustration, I was originally thinking about student frustration. But I may even put a word in about teacher frustration! Let’s start with the students.

Taking Time for Yourself

As we near the end of November, I want to express my appreciation for the opportunity to give you some helpful hints as you progress in your teaching career. Never forget that teachers touch lives, empower students, make heroes, open doors of opportunities, encourage dreamers, make dreams come true, replace a parent sometimes, unlock doors, solve mysteries, and in general improve the human condition.

That sounds like a tall order but we, as teachers, do this all the time. These things are not in our job descriptions or our bargained contracts (if we have them), but the opportunities are there for us every day. What other profession has this same scope of influence that can change the world and change lives?

We All Get Frustrated

I promised that this week would be about frustration.  When I decided on this topic, I was originally thinking about student frustration, but I may even put a word in about teacher frustration!  Let’s start with the students.

Most students with emotional disabilities have an extremely low tolerance for frustration.  Maag calls it the “Back to Zero Rule” where past experience means nothing.  These students cannot recall ever being successful.  “Why bother trying, I’ll only fail.”  So there is a lot of deserved praise in my class, with emphasis on the word “deserved” because students know when you’re merely appeasing them.  The goal is to find a balance between challenging them (because they don’t want “baby work”) and making the level of work so difficult that it frustrates them.  It may be a matter of the level of work or the amount of work; either one can be adjusted to accommodate individual student needs.