DearAnxiousTeacher

  What to teach? I remember starting out and wondering what exactly to teach. This overwhelming feeling will leave you lost in a sea of thought bubbles. My best advice, especially with starting out, is to find and print your state standards. Build your lessons by trying to achieve the standards set forth by your state. For example, I teach English. Many of my standards deal with citing textual evidence, analyzing central ideas, writing claims, etc. When I design lessons, I still read and target the standard. These standards most likely have great importance to student and teacher evaluations as governed by your state. However, teachers will complain about being told what to teach. You decide how to teach the lesson and what materials to use. Don’t let negativity bring you down when preparing a lesson. After printing out the standards, check out if your class has a physical or digital textbook. Follow along with the textbook. Most of these educational textbooks will have activities ...

First Day of School Be inviting (smile) Seating Chart Introduce yourself Teach rules and procedures Ask for participation Review Class Syllabus Welcome to the first day of school! You have anxiety, which is a normal feeling for all of us. You’re not alone! This is a great day to welcome students with a smile. Moments of awkwardness will present itself, but this is to be expected because we are meeting all new people. After all the students are in your class, direct students to assigned seats. I don’t advocate for allowing them to sit where they want, because many of them will seek their friends or sit in the back of the room. I alphabetize names to make life easier; however, if you have students with IEPs, place them in the best seat. Following student seating, introduce yourself and your interests. I like to create a presentation because it’s easier to show images of important items (homework/classwork bins) in the classroom. Also, explain your subject or class. Explain to students ab...

Teaching with diversity! How you doing?? This is an important topic because your classroom will have students from multiple backgrounds and cultures. When I taught in Brooklyn, I was the only Caucasian person in the class. Even to this day, a majority of my students come from Central and South America, the Caribbean. I remember a student asking me why I couldn’t find a job on Long Island—you know, way out in the suburbs; it bothered me for a moment. You may not represent the cultures and races of your students. You may feel inadequate because you aren’t the same race as your students. You might have to work a little extra to build relationships and trust with your students. Don’t let that bother you, because an outstanding teacher is an outstanding teacher. Here are the following tips to teach in a multicultural classroom: 1. Research and learn about the cultures of your students. 2. Invite cultural projects, readings, and lessons into your class. 3. Spend time in the community, attend...

It’s the end of the school year: warmer mornings, cool spring air, summer fever gaining momentum, and student motivation waning. Welcome to the end—you made it, be proud of yourself. This time of year, you may question your sanity. You're out of patience and your tolerance is gone. Looking forward to that big 10 week break keeps your optimism alive while you eagerly cross off the remaining days. At this time of year, consider what went well and what you can change for the following school year. Implementing new procedures, especially if they are drastic or large, should wait until the new school year. This time of year consider these ideas: 1) give students more autonomy with project based learning 2) create group learning assignments 3) have students public speak 4) game based learning 5) social-emotional learning reflections 6) class award/party days 7) movie days with an assignment attached 8) fun activities that build community these final few weeks. I am currently having the s...

It’s the end of the school year, and maybe it's becoming a little long in the tooth. You took this job thinking students would appreciate your efforts and caring attitude; in contrast, you’re dealing with some students who are just out to press your buttons and get under your skin. Accept that you’re not for everyone. Students, especially the challenging ones, will look to get you off your game and will eagerly await for your angry reactions. Don't give it to them. What do you do? You stay calm and controlled. Your behavior or attitude should be confident and unfazed. You then follow through with an actionable consequence with a matter-of-fact attitude. You're not rocked by teens. Discipline with kindness. Discipline without emotion and anger. Sometimes in the throes of classroom management, you wonder if students perceive and respect your kindness and support. “Why am I here” might even cross your mind as you question your sanity. We all just want a positive experience and...

  Hello seat changes! Changing students’ seats every quarter keeps the classroom fresh and functions like a computer reset. Things sometimes get stale in the classroom and students can get too comfortable sitting in their seats. To avoid this situation, change seats every quarter to help curtail unwanted behaviors and to freshen up the classroom. Each new quarter functions like a restart and this is a great time to move students into better placements. I like to look at my students individually and at their grades when placing students. Also, considering social needs may be a factor when assigning seats. Placing struggling students closer to the teacher is an excellent strategy, but maybe placing struggling students into a heterogeneous learning group instead. This may help them more than sitting closer to you. You never want to reveal your rationale or reasoning when directing students to assigned seats for obvious reasons. I like to mix the classroom seating by varying abilities ...

  Great topic, especially in today’s age where people no longer revere authority figures, including us teachers, as they did in the past. Students today have no problem asking for your phone number, cursing in front of you, or saying something highly suggestive or explicit, making us both uncomfortable. Students scrutinize what we say and may look to manipulate or twist our words for their betterment. Instead of researching evidence for an argumentative essay, students will research to find your social media accounts with an A+. We have all been to that bachelor or bachelorette party, where one of your friends went a little too hard. You wish you could delete the picture where you are the innocent bystander. I’ve heard of the horrors of a teacher being recorded by students. It feels like we are under a microscope. Here is advice on how to maintain and manage professional boundaries: Be mindful of your language. Labeling groups of students as “they” or “them” can be inflammatory. ...

    So you’re putting your lesson plans together.   How do you start your lesson? What’s the hook? A simple way of thinking about your teaching is to follow the model: I do, We do, You do. I do:  This will include your Do Now (hook), your instruction, modeling, and direct teaching. Keep this portion of your lesson to 10–15 minutes. Sometimes we make the mistake of lecturing too long, losing our students’ interest. You should target all sensory modalities (vision, hearing, and touch) to help students gain, process, and make use of new knowledge. Your lesson should start with something interesting and fun. Relate it to your students as much as possible. Knowing your students’ abilities is crucial to teaching them. If something is very abstract, make it concrete by providing plenty of analogies or metaphors to help students understand your content. Visuals will help with abstract concepts too. Music and YouTube videos can also assist with getting ideas across. Humor and...

  Class Rules should be short, positive, and not wordy. Too many rules will create confusion in your class. I recommend 3-5 rules tops with a general set of consequences to be posted somewhere in front of your classroom. These rules should be taught on the first day of school. If you’re considering adding more rules, look at your class procedures first; perhaps a class procedure can take the place of a rule instead of adding extra rules. Too many rules will also make you look like a drill sergeant or a control freak, and students might be overwhelmed trying to follow all your rules. My class rules are REP: Respect, Effort, and Participate. Showing Respect is also following class procedures and directions. Respect is a broad category that encompasses more factors than just being courteous and kind. Also, fewer rules are better, because when you’re disciplining students, you may forget which rule or infraction was broken. You don’t want to be scrambling to tell the student what rul...

    Tons of teacher personalities exist. I’ve worked with a lot of talented teachers. This one is great with discipline! Everyone loves this teacher! Now, here is your content expert! You then wonder about your own fit. What makes you special? Who are you in the field? Overthinking and comparing yourself too is not helpful. Never compare yourself to anyone. Then you deal with teachers who have massive egos who like to flex their “God-like” teaching abilities, igniting insecurities in our minds. First, you really need to be choosy about who you inquire advice from. Find someone who shares a similar teaching persona or philosophy to you. You need to trial and challenge everything you hear. Trying and seeing for yourself should always be the mantra of everything. Even me! There are a lot of poor teachers out there not to heed advice from. So if something sounds odd, believe your gut feelings or intuition. Stupid advice that floats around with teachers like not smiling until the h...

  Well, at least, that’s the goal. Teaching is overwhelming, stressful, and the grading just doesn’t stop—won’t stop. The first few years, no lie, you will take home your job to grade and make lesson plans on the weekends and over breaks. You might even think about canceling events, because you’re now in a full-time relationship with your computer. Hello Dell! You’re pretty warm over there. This will compound and cause you to feel frustrated and irritated. Then later the following day, deal with that really annoying kid in your last period class who is just waiting to press your self-destruct button. Trying to get away from this job is difficult. You will need to make time for yourself, no matter what. Even if it’s for only an hour, “teacher life” needs to be put away and put to bed. Remember, dedicate Friday night to yourself, no matter what. Go out and have fun! You should do the same thing during holiday breaks. Work hard when you’re at work. Don’t get too caught up in the teach...

  I’m from the 90s and early 2000s—the birth of the dumb phone. Remember Nextel’s and Nokia’s? Yeah, me too! Fast forward to this new generation of heavily addicted teens who bring devices to school and spend upwards of 4-5 hours on average of screen time. Shockingly, a kid last year told me she averages 10 hours a day—I didn’t believe it until she showed me her phone. Yikes! A few years ago, phones would really stress me out because of inappropriate videos and images being airdropped or shared. How is that educational? Who can focus nowadays, anyway? Students today will defend and assert they need to text their mom or family members, when in reality, it’s just a fib to text friends and go further down the “rabbit of hole” of distraction and addiction. Whose problem is this now? Do we blame the school or the teacher? Do we blame the tech companies who employ neuroscientists and engineers who purposely target our dopamine receptors? It’s like trying to avoid the calling of that brow...

  I don’t understand. I try to be super kind, fun, helpful. They just don’t like me. Welcome to the actual world of handling student criticism and hate! Well, at least it feels like that! For me, rapport is everything, and—this I promise you—students will dislike you. No matter what you say or do, there will always be 1 or 2 students who will find something to dislike about you. Know this—it’s them, not you! Don’t worry about student judgement and dislike. Keep your head high, be you, and carry on because this experience is one of life’s great lessons: The sooner you accept that not everyone is going to like you, the easier your life will be.  Please read my advice below on handling this uncomfortable feeling or emotion. 1.  Let Go. Students are young. Students’ brains are not fully developed or mature yet. Sometimes impulse control is absent. Remember their ages when you’re dealing with this part of teaching. I still need to remind myself that we are super imperfect be...

  The following teacher apps below are the best pieces of digital technology to add to your classroom. Supportive and helpful to teachers, these apps will offer benefits to grading, communicating with families/students, building communities, and managing behavior in your class. I will update this list as I review more and more apps to help you in the classroom. Google Classroom:   Rating:  9/10 This app and website offers a gradebook, integrates with Google Drive, and provides a one stop be-all and end-all of an online classroom with apps to help support your learners. Invite students into your class, setup a gradebook with percentages, create Google Slides (presentation software), and write with Google Docs. I recommend being “all in” on Google Apps like Docs, Sheets, and Slides because these services work collaboratively; however, one issue with the gradebook is that it doesn’t allow you to create a new quarter. You might need to remake another classroom and again mass ...

    It’s your first year. Late nights, anxiety, stress, caffeine-induced insomnia, canceling dates, missing family events, and freaking out plays like a broken record in your mind. Rewind, rewind again, and hitting play with the same emotions repeatedly. Hard to believe this—it gets better! Questioning your decision on the regular will take up a majority of your thoughts. God bless the person you’re dating during that first year because your relationship might get a little rocky. My wife wondered where my personality went during my first year. “I liked you so much better before you became a teacher,” with an old lady’s nagging, husky voice. Pretending to be an excellent teacher and acting like you know what you’re doing will prevail during this time period. Self-doubts will arise and tests will challenge your confidence. From this experience, you will grow into the best version of yourself as a teacher. Don’t judge the field by the first year. It’s a huge transition, includ...

  Multiple Choice: You may receive a look of disdain for choosing this style of assessment. Rightfully so, this isn’t the best approach to assess student performance, but because of the limitation of time, go with this method more often than not to save time. Make quizzes/tests and maybe even homework assignments multiple choice when you’re overwhelmed. When you’re caught up, look for other methods to assess and grade students. Look into Google Forms and the app Zipgrade to help you grade quicker. Zipgrade will allow you to print out scantrons that you can scan with your phone for an immediate, accurate grade. Snapshot Grades: Teachers can grade homework assignments with a scale of 100, 75, 50, 25, 0. If students complete the homework fully, neatly, and with effort, give the student a 100. I call this a snapshot grade because the grade is really about effort and responsibility. Or maybe…grade the first 5 questions on homework. Are your students being compliant? Reward them with a...

  Sunday night blues sound familiar? Is anxiety creeping and bubbling up pessimistic thoughts in your head? How do we get out of our head? The chances of sleep success are dropping, much like the 1929 stock market crash. No matter what we try or do, sleep isn’t on the agenda. Adrenaline keeps pumping through our veins and our body is more ready for a treadmill at 3 AM instead of being in la-la land or the land of z’s. The short-hand on the clock keeps moving quicker and quicker. Bingo! It’s time to get ready for work. Can’t hit that snooze button again because you’re out of time. Bleary-eyed and worried, we now must get ready for work. Negative thinking pounds the landscape of your mind like a swirling storm. Is it really Monday morning? “Please, day go away!” Anxiety strikes again! Do the following to battle the anxiety demons and come out on top. It will take time, but it will definitely improve the outlook of your day. 1. Wake-up earlier: Get up an hour earlier than you normall...

  1. Smile : Don’t listen to the adage that you shouldn’t smile until the winter break. That’s a bunch of nonsense. Smile and smile often because your disposition can often influence your students. If you’re a happy and calm person, you’ll see your students respond with a similar disposition. From the first day of school until the last day of school, smile at your students. 2. Greet : Say hello to your students every single day. When students enter your classroom, say hello or give them a “pound.” Everybody deserves to be acknowledged and made to feel good. 3. Learn Names : Your goal in the first quarter is to learn their names as soon as possible. Use a seating chart and aim within the first month to month in a half to learn their names. This shows that you care. 4. Small Talk : Learn about student interest and speak to them before and after class when you can. Asking students about their lives will earn their respects. Students may even start asking you about your day and your li...

Are you struggling with misbehavior in the classroom? Listen-all of us struggle with this teaching. Nobody is perfect with their approach. Disciplining humans can be mentally draining, and may even make us question why we teach to begin with. Don’t expect perfection from your students. Some teachers prefer a more fear-based approach and others discipline in more of a nurturing style. My preference is obviously the latter. Also, be careful with asking advice from a teacher who has a peculiar style from you; their advice may not work for you. My biggest advice is this: Be yourself!  Stop asking fellow teachers what they do in the classroom-especially if your styles clash. Try to find   someone who has a similar temperament to you, yet still, you need to do what feels comfortable and natural to your personality. Being in the classroom and gaining experience are the best ways to learn classroom management. Making mistakes and trying new things will be your best teacher with disc...