First-year Teachers

The school posts the class assignments for the upcoming school year and as you search the lists for your child's name, you realize he has been assigned the new teacher, and worse yet-a first-year teacher.

I've often said that if I had to relive my first year of teaching I would select a different career. The joy of teaching was often overshadowed by the hours of preparation, mountains of papers, lack of support from parents and clerical tasks.

We are all lifelong learners and no one is a finished project. Even master teachers continue to learn and develop and are never really "finished". Sadly, when a teacher thinks they are "finished", their effectiveness usually is.

First-year teachers are great for many reasons. They are full of energy and ideas. They are optimistic and see endless potential in their students and themselves. Really, the only thing they lack is experience and now you have become part of that experience with them and for them. How can you support a first-year teacher? Suzanne Cottrell, a friend and former teacher induction specialist, suggests the following:

• They are professionals. They have been trained and successfully achieved both content and pedagological exams in order to teach your children. Trust in them. "Refrain from assuming the worst about first-year teachers." (http://www.ed.gov/)
• Be supportive of the teacher at home. Always talk positively about him with your student. You may not always agree with a teacher and his methods but talking negatively about the teacher with the student or while the student is listening will only foster a negative attitude in the student. Students should be happy and comfortable in the school setting and parents play an important role in their student's feeling of safety in the classroom.
• Teach your student responsibility and organization. Organizational items can eat up a teacher's valuable preparation time. Teachers prefer to spend time on preparing to teach and teaching rather than figuring out which students don't have lunch money, missing library books and field trip permission slips. Return homework and other items on time, when requested, and completed accurately. Late work, late anything is the bain of a teacher's existence. It takes twice as much work to handle a late assignment as one turned in on time!
• Share important information about your student with the teacher. One mother was frustrated with her son's first-year teacher because she struggled assigning him level-appropriate readers. Give the teacher information about what your student's strengths and weaknesses are. Some primary grade classes have 30 students and secondary schools 35+. Parents have a responsibility to keep teachers informed about changes that may affect a student's performance at school.
• Volunteer to help in specific ways. New teachers are not often adept at using volunteers effectively. Vounteer to be responsible for bulletin boards, field trips, working with struggling students, assembling classroom materials, publishing a weekly newsletter. What do you enjoy doing? Combine your talents and look for the need.
• Talk to the teacher first about problems. Nothing is more frustrating than to have the principal request you to call or meet with a parent who didn't talk to you first. The teacher is your partner in your student's education. Open lines of communication are a must.

In Doctrine & Covenants 88:78 it reads, "Teach ye diligently and my grace shall attend thee, that you may be intstructed more perfectly." Pray for your first-year teacher that he will teach diligently for if he does, God's grace will attend and he will be instructed more perfectly. On many occasions in public school and in church settings, I have been instructed more perfectly on how to reach, teach and help individual students or teach a specific concept or accomplish seemingly insurmountable tasks. Thank you to all the parents who believed in me, supported me, volunteered in my class, and prayed for me as I taught-especially my first year.