The First Year of Teaching - Highs and Lows

Your first year of teaching is launched and I can imagine that it's an been exciting and overwhelming experience.  In recent months you’ve student taught, completed college requirements, graduated, applied for jobs, interviewed, and landed a position. You attended new teacher sessions, set-up your classroom, prepared for the opening day, and kicked-off the school year.  And now, you’ve completed the first month of your first year of teaching!  The past months have been a roller coaster with days of excitement and anticipation while other days were filled with anxiety and total exhaustion.   

Studies show that most first-year teachers typically experiences ups and downs that can be divided into six defined phases*  that fall into a monthly structure.  Take a look at this chart and see if you can place yourself in any of the early phases.

Phases of First Year Teaching
Phase	When	Description
Anticipation	Graduation - first weeks of teaching	New teachers enter the classroom with a tremendous commitment to making a difference for students.
Survival	September & October	They struggle to keep their head above water.  There is little time to stop and reflect on how thing are going.  They experience extreme exhaustion.
Disillusionment	November & December	Weeks of non-stop work and stress.  New teachers question their commitment and competence. This is the toughest challenge for the new teacher.
Rejuvenation	Holiday Break - March	A slow rise in the new teacher's attitude toward teaching.  Rest and a normal lifestyle over the holiday break helps.  The break offers a time to regroup, organize, and plan.  They experience renewed hope!
Reflection	April & May	The novice is reflecting on the year's activities and on what worked and what didn’t.  They're thinking about changes they'll make in the future.
Anticipation	June -August	They have new feeling of excitement and they begin planning for the next school year.

While not every new teacher experiences these phases at the same time, being award of this information can help you better understand and respect this developmental process.  By acknowledging the ebb and flow of the first year, you can be aware of pitfalls and plan strategies to make the early teaching transitions easier.  Teaching is an extremely challenging profession, and while it does get easier with time, it's vital that beginners understand and respect the process it take to survive the first year.

Here are few ideas that might help relieve the stress of the survival phase.  Early in the year it's a good idea to reflect on your organizations skills, take steps to simplify curriculum planning, respect and trust your own skills, and the practice ESP—Eat, Sleep, and Play.

Organize: Review personal and classroom organizational systems.  Evaluate what’s working and what isn’t and then decide on a couple of changes that can be made right now.  Small changes can create amazing gains in productivity.  If those shifts involve students, be explicit and share the new new procedures.  

Simplify: By now you're probably aware of the vast amount of curricular resources available to you.  Between district materials, journal articles, your own files, and the internet you have no lack of enrichment materials to enhance instruction. Sometimes too much of a good thing can be a problem due to time limitations for planning and teaching.  Pick a few good resources and use them as your primary materials.  In the future you can add more content, but first become familiar and comfortable with the curriculum. 

Trust Yourself: Don’t discount what you bring to the classroom.  You’ve studied long hours to obtain your degree and teacher certification plus you’ve done many hours of fieldwork.  You’ll always have more to learn no matter how long you teach; however, trust that you’ll be successful and be confident in your abilities.  Look at small accomplishments and celebrate your successes.  Keep a running record of the things you do well each week! That may sound corny, but it's a real energy booster!

Practice ESP:   Eat well, get enough Sleep, and take time to Play a little bit each week.   In the "Play" clip, Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way, discusses taking an Artist Date.  Right now your art is the art and craft of teaching and it needs to be nurtured!

*Moir, E. (1999) The stages of teacher's first year. A better beginning: Supporting and mentoring new teachers, 19-23.

"They may forget what you said but they will never forget how you made them feel."     

                                                                                                          -Carol Buchner